Crystal Tears
by Aisuru1
Summary: *Finished* Amethyst is the only Dark Kingdom child to survive Queen Serenity's sleep spell at the end of the Silver Millenium. She tries to destroy the (first season) Sailor Senshi in a quest for revenge over General Jadeite's fate. Please r/r each chap.
1. Prologue

Crystal Tears: Prologue  
By Aisuru  
aisuru_chan@yahoo.com  
  
  
*****   
  
Prologue part 1: A Night of Betrayals  
  
  
A man lay dying. It had been a night of betrayals. One of General Kunzite's soldiers, he had followed his leader into battle against the Dark Kingdom enemies. He and his brethren soldiers had marched deep into the forests surrounding Prince Endymion's castle. The forests had seemed unnaturally quiet that night. The sad hoot of owl, the scurry of mice underfoot, and the howl of the wolf were all absent on this night. There was only the sound of General Kunzite's men, shivering against the chill of an autumn night as they waited.   
  
The man let out a bitter laugh, cut short by pain as he clutched his side. They had been awaiting their own destruction. The silence had been broken when General Kunzite had unsheathed his sword and plunged it into the heart of the nearest soldier. As the men stood in stunned horrification, the Dark Kingdom   
forces had attacked.  
  
Without a leader, General Kunzite's forces had easily fallen. The Dark Kingdom forces fought with a deadly combination of sword and magic. Some were men that, in their greed and lust for power, had willingly joined Queen Beryl's cause in return for mystical training. Others, some of whom the dying soldier had recognized, had surely been turned to the darkness by force. The Dark Kingdom humans were accompanied by the youma, spirits that were captured and given physical form in exchange for unwavering loyalty to the darkness.  
  
The dying man had fought fiercely, remembering his vows to protect Prince Endymion, and remembering the family he could go home to when the fighting was over. He had lost his own will to fight, however, when his beloved wife appeared, a sword in the hands that had clung to him when he had left for training only a year before, a sneer on the lips that had tenderly kissed him, an evil glint in her eyes. He had been unable to fight, unwilling to crush the woman he had vowed to love and honor, in sickness and in health. He had only been able to watch her, tears forming in his eyes, as she had plunged her sword into his side without a moment's hesitation.  
  
The searing heat in his side had been only a pinprick compared to the anguish in his heart. He decided he would heal her in the only way he knew. Gathering as much strength as he could, he raised his own sword, running it through a heart that had forgotten how to love. The blood ran black and then crimson, and her eyes softened through a glaze of pain. The lips lost their sneer and whispered, "Thank you," before she fell, lifeless, to the ground. Her husband had fallen beside her, stroking the smooth skin of her face, porcelain pale in death, and smoothed her hair, the white-blonde locks taking on a lavender hue in the muted moonlight.  
  
The sounds of the battle had roared in his ears, the screaming of wounded men intermingled with the shrieks of the youma, the crackling of magical attacks, and the maniacal laughter of the twisted Dark Kingdom humans as they butchered their prey. Then the sounds had faded as the Dark Kingdom forces ran out of soldiers to slay. Now the man lay on the forest floor, able to do little more than wait for death's approach. He had lost so much blood, and he had so little left to live for. He wondered if the forest sounds would return before he died.  
  
A sound to his left brought him out of his shifting thoughts. A twig snapped under someone's foot. He turned vague eyes towards the sound. A young girl stood beside him, her waist-length, purple-tinted platinum blonde hair shimmering in the moonlight. "Amelia?" he muttered, recognizing his young daughter through his dimming vision. He felt a strange sense of joy as he realized that if he knew Amelia was safe, he could truly die in peace. When she didn't answer, he looked at her more closely. She was holding something in her closed hand, something that gave off the faintest glow of purplish light. When she opened her hand, the sudden flare of light revealed her more fully. Her violet eyes were cold, and she viewed him without recognition.  
  
She held out the crystal, and the dying man felt the last of his strength leave him. He felt tiny hands, belonging to other children, stripping him of his sword, his dagger, and his boots, but he struggled against death to see his only child. Then, as he let out his last breath, the soft voice of his daughter rang in his ears, "Amelia? You must be mistaken. My name is Amethyst."  
  
  
*****  
  
  
Prologue part 2: A Dark Kingdom Child  
  
The child that called herself Amethyst moved on to her next victim. This man was also dying, but he was of the Dark Kingdom forces. His glazed eyes held the glint she recognized in her own eyes, the glint of ferocious loyalty to the Dark Kingdom that the misguided humans called evil. This man looked up at the girl, immediately noting the crystal she held. "So, is my usefulness at an end?" he asked.  
  
Amethyst shook her head in the negative. "Your usefulness will never end," she stated. "Your energy will be used in sustaining the spirit of Metallia."  
  
The man gave a wry smile as the girl raised the crystal towards him. "Thus I go to my immortality," he muttered. His limbs weakened, and then he fell limp in death.  
  
Amethyst felt a thrill run through her as the man's life force was absorbed into her crystal. She had created the crystal herself after receiving training from the older children. Now, as she gathered life force energy from the dying, she was truly useful to the Dark Kingdom cause. She watched with disinterest as the other children removed boots and weaponry from the now-dead man. Then Amethyst walked off to search around for her next target.  
  
Stepping over the butchered bodies of human and youma, she sought out those that clung to life and relieved them of their life energy. The energy would be put to good use in the Dark Kingdom. Amethyst looked up as she entered a clearing. She could almost make out the dark spirit of Metallia hovering over the moon in the night sky. She had heard rumors that Queen Beryl herself had taken the Dark Kingdom forces to a direct attack on the Moon Kingdom, the pillar of the Silver Millennium. As Amethyst watched, the Moon Kingdom, whose brilliance had been visible from the earth just minutes before, dimmed as the Dark Kingdom forces triumphed. She had been filled with pride in her people on their successful attack, and had held the crystal to her forehead, allowing her a moment to feel the swirling pure energy she had trapped. Then the moon exploded in light, a light painful in its intensity, and she suddenly found herself alone.  
  
*****  
  
Prologue part 3: Before the Awakening  
  
  
Amethyst tried to stifle down the panic that threatened to overwhelm her. One moment she had been in the forests surrounding Prince Endymion's fortress, gathering the life force energy from dying soldiers, and now she was floating in nothingness.   
  
Was she still alive? She didn't know. She couldn't even feel her own body. She was only aware of her intense fear.   
  
Fear was weakness. She was a Dark Kingdom citizen. She had to keep her mind under control.  
  
Then Amethyst realized that she could feel her consciousness. Maybe that was a resource she could work with. Although she had never had telepathic training in the Dark Kingdom, she had learned mental discipline for the creation of gems. She tried to reach out with her mind, hoping to sense the environment around her. At first her attempts were vague and without direction. She sensed nothing.   
  
Over time, when the fear of being surrounded by the unknown had faded, an all-consuming loneliness set in. She remembered the battlefield, being surrounded by the dead and the dying. It was then that she remembered the children she had been with. She wondered if they might be here with her, wherever here was. She hadn't been able to sense an environment around her, but maybe she could reach the consciousness of the other children. She reached out again with her mind, this time focusing upon a child being trained in telepathy. If anyone could feel her presence, it would be her!   
  
Then she felt it, the presence of the other girl's mind. Instead of the companionship she had anticipated, however, she found no consciousness. Instead she felt the budding talents and skills of the other child lay bare before her. Hesitantly at first, and then with more intent, she plundered the treasure chest that was the girl's mind. She found the girl's telepathic talent, and she connected herself to that talent, making it hers. She also found the sum of the girl's training, and this she fully assimilated. With a little focus she could now see the minds of the other children, all unconscious and open to her as this first girl had been.   
  
She continued this plunder, visiting each of the other children in turn, trying to forget that she was, in fact, all alone. She connected herself to their talents and assimilated their knowledge. After visiting an especially intelligent boy, she instantaneously understood the complex mathematics that had hindered her development as a crystal engineer. She coupled this with the more advanced crystal engineer training of an older girl with this particular talent, and her mind was filled with the intricate pathways required to design a staggering array of crystals.   
  
With her new mathematical understanding, she was able to apply the knowledge she gleaned from the children to a greater extent than they ever had. One child had read a text on energy manipulation, and although the child had only read it to show off to another child and had never understood the book, Amethyst could now envision energy manipulations of all sorts. Another child had hidden away to listen to a lecture on advanced crystal engineering, and although the child had fallen asleep during the lecture, and Amethyst had never before heard of the crystals the lecture discussed, she now felt confident she could create these   
advanced crystals herself. Amethyst even found a child with an obsessive interest in the summoning of monsters from alternative planes of existence, something rarely done because such monsters were almost impossible to control, making youma much more useful.  
  
She noticed that all of the children she visited had memories of the explosion of light on the moon. She couldn't find any of the children that had been on the sun touched side of the earth, children who would not have been touched by the blinding light from the moon. With no more children to visit, the loneliness, which she had forced herself to forget as she kept busy with her assimilations, started to settle in again. Perhaps she could reach one of the adults that had been on the moon when the light had hit. She still clung to hopes that she would find a mind conscious of her, that her loneliness would end.  
  
Using her connection to the child with the telepathic talents, she reached for an adult mind. Too vague. She tried to think of a specific adult. Dark Kingdom children were largely kept away from the adults, who were just as likely to practice their energy projections on a child as they were to say hello, so older children were used to train the younger ones. She had trouble remembering an adult clearly enough to focus on. Then she remembered the adult that had given her an energy-gathering youma she had used before creating her crystal. She focused, struggling to maintain the clarity of mind required for such a task. This was more difficult, as if the adult was further away, but she kept trying, forcing herself to forget that she was alone, that she had been alone for so long.   
  
Then she saw it. She felt a glimmer of hope; this mind was different from that of the children. Maybe he would be aware of her, would destroy the loneliness that engulfed her.   
  
No, he was not aware of her, but his mind was also opened to her, as the minds of the children had been. His mind held more complex information, including extensive knowledge of Dark Kingdom history and literature, mathematics and physics, advanced teleportation and levitation, and the intensely developed skills he used to create youma.   
  
She was a Dark Kingdom citizen. She would not be afraid. She would develop her mind.  
  
It occurred to her suddenly that if she could assimilate the knowledge of youma creation, maybe she could create a youma and then not be alone. She visited many other adults with this skill, adults found in this first adult's memory, and she harvested minds until all the information she found was repetitive of that found in previous minds.   
  
Unfortunately, she could not use the skills she had obtained from these other minds. In order to create a youma, she would need to infuse a rogue spirit with dark energy, molding it a physical form and inspiring it to follow your will. She needed dark energy to form the youma and a physical space in which to create the physical form, but as far as she knew, she was not in physical space.  
  
She was a Dark Kingdom citizen. She would not panic. She would develop her mind and solve the problem of the loneliness. She filed through her own mind, seeing the highly developed skills of teleportation and levitation she had obtained with the harvesting of her first adult, seeing her continued connection to the first child she had visited, which she used as an anchor as she explored the minds of others. She saw the Dark Kingdom history, literature, mathematics, and science she had picked up along the way. She found the smatterings of advanced energy projection and telekinesis she had obtained quite on accident during her search for youma creation, and her own crystal engineering talent, which had been magnified by the knowledge of others. She found the wealth of unusable information on youma creation.   
  
Physical plane. She needed to find a physical plane on which to create her youma.  
  
She dug deeper into her mind's supplies of stolen treasures. There she found the child with the interest in summoning monsters from alternative planes of existence. Maybe if she could summon monsters from alternative planes, she could go to the physical planes.  
  
She revisited this child's mind. Now more experienced in the ways of telepathy, she recognized the child's mind to be raggedly ravaged, obviously her own earlier novice results. Many of the mental threads had been torn in her desperation. Regardless, she now found the thread of she sought through the remnant shreds and made this knowledge to summon monsters her own.  
  
*****  
  
Author's Notes:  
  
I know, I know, there hasn't been any sign of Mamoru or Usagi yet. Don't worry; that is because they were busy dying on the moon as Prince Endymion and Princess Serenity (Aisuru ducks a shoe someone threw at her). We all know that they'll be back to save the day -- just not yet. If you want to read a dedicated Usagi and Mamoru fanfic (or should I say Usagi and Prince Endymion...) then email me and yell at me to hurry up with another fanfiction I am working on called "Source of Strength."   
  
Oh, in case you were wondering, I do not own the rights to Sailor Moon or her universe. Amethyst, however, is mine! Thank you.  
  
Email me at aisuru_chan@yahoo.com (and in case you are wondering, I am Aisuru, not Aisuru-chan, despite what the email may lead you to believe.) In fact, I would like to thank Aisuru-chan for helping me edit this prologue (confused yet?). If there are any mistakes, though, you have to blame me, because I totally rearranged the story after I had her edit it. Bad me. Actually, I did have my Koudanshi-chan re-edit it after the rearrangement, and he was extremely helpful. It was a labor of love for him to edit, because he isn't at all interested in the Sailor Moon universe. I know, isn't that weird?   
  
Okay, repeat after me: "As soon as I finish reading this I will email Aisuru at aisuru_chan@yahoo.com or will leave a review so she will know if anyone actually read it!" Thank you. If you do want to read two completed Sailor Moon ficslets, try my stories "Reaching Out" (Crystal Tokyo) and "A Silly Dream" (no season specified). I also have a few Buffy the Vampire Slayer stories, but these are a bit more for a mature audience only.   
  
  
@)---,---'--- 


	2. Chapter 1: The Awakening

Crystal Tears  
Chapter 1: The Awakening  
By Aisuru  
  
  
"What an awful mess!" Nephrite complained, looking into the tatters that had been the mind of a child. "I don't know what could have caused this." His telepathic skills were weak, but this child was in a mindless state, unable to block the weakest telepathic probing.  
  
"It looks like the work of an untrained telepath, sir," stated one of Nephrite's soldiers. "Maybe the extended unconscious state made him more susceptible."  
  
Nephrite nodded and went on to the next child. The four Generals had been the first to be awakened by Queen Beryl after the thousand years of imprisonment Queen Serenity had surprised them with. Now the Generals were awakening the Dark Kingdom citizens a few at a time, trying to prevent the wide spread panic that would be caused by a mass return to consciousness. Most of the process had gone  
smoothly, with the vast majority of the citizens awakening with no ill effects. Only two groups had suffered casualties. The first group noticed to be effected were the youma creators. While no problems were detected and the awakening protocols had gone smoothly, a few had slipped way   
without taking a first breath. Others were breathing but  
appeared brain dead. Still others were fine, and were even now creating fresh batches of youma. The loss of the youma creators was a nuisance, but there were still more than enough youma creators given the limited energy supplies available for the production of youma.  
  
More confusing had been the children. The children had been saved to awaken last, as they had the least importance and were safer kept in their semi-conscious states away from the other adults while the adults became absorbed by their tasks. Now that the children were being awakened, it appeared as if none were salvageable.  
  
"If you ask me, it's just as well," Zoicite stated. "Annoying sniveling little brats. The Dark Kingdom will be better off without them."  
  
Jadeite looked up from the child he was studying and shot Zoicite a look of annoyance, but stifled any comment he would have said when he realized that Kunzite was nearby.   
  
"Are any of them revive-able?" Kunzite asked.  
"None so far," Jadeite admitted, moving on to one of the last children. Jadeite had a fondness for children,   
finding them more easily teachable in the arts of mental training than the adults, and found the loss of the children to be a devastating loss to the Dark Kingdom. He looked at the child before him, unmoving in the long sleep, her purple-white hair hanging limp around her body, her tiny face smudged with dirt from whatever task she had been doing when she was taken. Then he looked more closely at her face. There was a mark on her forehead, a pale purple sunburst design that looked as if it had imprinted there by some sort of energy. He had never seen the likes of it before. Then he noticed that her eyes were moving beneath her closed eyelids. REM sleep. She was dreaming.  
  
"Um, guys..." he started. The other generals approached, following Jadeite's gaze to the sleeping child.   
"I think we found a keeper."  
  
Nephrite motioned to his telepathic soldier, and he came forward. He frowned when he noticed the sunburst design on her forehead, but he swallowed his apprehension and put the palm of his right hand onto her forehead. Then he focused his energy in an attempt to reach her mind. After a moment he broke contact. "I can't get in, sir," he stated, looking confused. "It is as if her mind is somewhere else, in a literal sense."  
  
"You mean she is on another plane of existence?" Nephrite questioned.  
  
"It is possible, sir," the telepathic soldier agreed. "Although I didn't know that was possible in one so young."  
"If she has been aware on some level for the last thousand years, we can't know what to expect," Jadeite stated. Then he turned to Nephrite. "If she is in an alternative plane of existence, is it safe to wake her?"  
  
"As you said, Jadeite, we can't know what to expect." Nephrite answered.   
  
"What is this mark?" Zoicite asked, pointing to the sunburst design on the child's forehead.  
  
Kunzite, who had been quiet during this exchange, pointed to the girl's tightly fisted right hand. The edges of a purple energy-storage crystal could be seen peeking out through her fingers. "All of the children that were put in the sleep were on the moon touched side of the earth when Queen Serenity cast the sleep spell," he started. "This one seems to have been gathering the life forces of the wounded. It would appear that she was connecting with the crystal when the blast occurred."  
  
"So the life-force energy made her partially immune to the sleep spell? Lucky girl," Zoicite muttered.  
  
"Lucky?" Jadeite exclaimed in surprise. "This girl has been in a concious isolation for the past thousand years! How can you possibly call that lucky?"  
  
"Not in total isolation," Nephrite muttered, looking at the room full of dead children with meaning.  
  
Zoicite gasped. "Do you mean to say that you think this little girl fried the brains of all the other children?"  
  
Kunzite nodded. "It makes sense. We can't even begin to imagine what a conscious isolation would do to a person after a thousand years. Surely she would have done all in her power to reach out for someone else." He paused for a moment, thinking. "We need to decide right now what should  
be done with this child. It is highly likely that this girl is responsible for the deaths of all the other children. It is also possible that she is responsible for the casualties among the youma creators. We have never seen such a level of telepathy before. Couple this advanced and detrimental telepathic power with the emotional state of a child isolated from all interactions with conscious people for a full thousand years. Do we want to unleash this girl  
on the Dark Kingdom, or do we kill her now and report to the people that all of the children died of unknown causes?"  
  
"I say we snuff out the little twerp," Zoicite said with a shudder. "I don't like children, and I'm not too fond of telepathy either. It sounds like a perfectly horrifying combination. A brat that can shred your mind to tatters if you don't keep her happy? No thank you."  
  
Nephrite was also concerned about the risk, but Zoicite's prejudice against telepaths annoyed him. "Remember that these children were in a state of extended unconsciousness. It is very likely this made their minds more susceptible to telepathy. Do we have a file on this girl? What is her name? Maybe she doesn't even have telepathic powers under normal circumstances."  
  
Zoicite picked up the girl's wrist with obvious distaste and read the identification bracelet worn by all Dark Kingdom children. "Her name is Amethyst."  
  
Jadeite walked over to a wall display and typed for a minute or so. "Okay, here are the children identification files. Amethyst, originally known as Amelia, was the only daughter of one of Prince Endymion's soldiers. She joined our ranks about a year before the great sleep, when she was  
five, and was being trained in gemology."  
  
"What?" Zoicite interrupted. "There is no way I'm going to be responsible for this girl's training," he cried. Zoicite was the expert on gemology, the creation and use of crystals as energy storage devices, locators, and weapons.  
  
Jadeite glared at her before continuing. "She was showing the beginnings of levitation and teleportation skills at last check." He looked up from the wall display.   
"She tested negative for innate telepathic powers."  
  
"She received no training in the travel on other mental planes of existence?" Nephrite asked.  
  
Jadeite pushed a few buttons. "Children that young aren't even tested for that talent," he replied. 'In the  
Dark Kingdom they usually aren't expected to reach adolescence, when such talents are usually revealed,' he thought to himself. "In fact, it says here that her only  
detectable talents involved gemology."  
  
Kunzite cleared his throat. "Zoicite has made his opinion quite clear. What say the rest of you?"  
  
"Well, the records say she has no telepathic powers under normal conditions," Nephrite started, glancing around at the dead children. "It is possible that she'd be perfectly harmless once awakened, and it would be interesting to work with someone that can travel alternative planes of existence at such a young age..."  
  
"She isn't young," Zoicite interrupted. "She has been at least semi-conscious for the last thousand years!"  
  
Nephrite nodded. "Yes, I suppose you are right. And there is no guarantee that she won't lose that ability once  
she is awakened."  
  
"I'll take her," Jadeite suddenly said.  
  
"Are you sure?" Kunzite asked. "She would be your full responsibility, and we can't be sure what she is capable of or likely to do when awakened."  
  
Jadeite nodded. "If she does maintain her telepathic powers and can be taught to control them, she would be a great resource for Queen Beryl. If her ability to travel  
alternative planes of existence stays intact, she might be able to connect other telepaths with the alternative planes. We have never seen such a combination of talents before. I must put my loyalty to the cause of my Queen before my own safety. I must take this risk."  
  
"And you think you can teach her to control her powers?" Kunzite asked.  
  
"The desire to do the Queen's will runs strong in Dark Kingdom children," Jadeite pointed out. "They absorb the Dark Energy quickly and completely upon their capture. There are few things a child won't do in service to the queen. This child was scavenging supplies and energy from the dying after a battle. Her loyalty runs strong. I am sure of it."  
  
Kunzite nodded. "Then it is settled as far as I am concerned. Jadeite is solely responsible for this child and the preservation of the Dark Kingdom citizens where she is concerned." Kunzite looked at the other generals. "There is to be no word of this to anyone. As far as the citizens are concerned, this child was a lucky survivor of the sleeping spell. Our suspicions about her potential telepathic abilities and their consequences will remain classified." He then looked at Zoicite. "This child is to be under our protection as a potentially valuable commodity of the Queen. I will not hold it against her if she uses her powers in self defense."  
  
Zoicite nodded. "But I don't like it, and I'm not going to work with her on her gemology!"  
  
Kunzite agreed. "Very well." Then he added, "If my suspicions of her are correct, she probably won't need your  
help."  
  
Jadeite approached the child, and the other generals and the soldiers that had been accompanying them left the room of dead children and a potentially deadly girl. Jadeite noted that some of the soldiers looked unhappy, recognizing that being privy to now-classified information would probably mean their deaths if the energy couldn't be spared for brainwashing treatments.   
  
When they were gone, Jadeite reached for the child's hand, the one holding the energy storage crystal, and gently uncurled her fist. The crystal in her palm had maintained its swirls of life force energy after all these years. He carefully took the crystal out of her palm, and he watched the rapid movement of her eyes under the lids slow and then cease. She was finally in a dreamless peace.   
  
He performed the awakening procedure quickly and efficiently, and the girl's eyes fluttered open. They were an intense shade of purple.  
  
"Hello, Amethyst," Jadeite said with a non-threatening smile. "Welcome to the world of the living."  
  
Amethyst stared at him silently. Her eyes were too mature for her physical age, holding too much knowledge, too much wisdom, too much suffering. Then she looked around herself, taking in the sight of the still bodies of the other children. She looked back at Jadeite.  
  
"Yes, they are all dead," he said, answering her unspoken questions. Then he added, "Queen Serenity cast a sleep spell on everyone her silver light touched." He shuddered slightly at the memory of the intensity of the light, the disgusting purity of it. Nothing so pure should be so powerful. "It would appear that your connection with the energy-storage crystal at the moment of the blast's impact left you partially immune to the sleep. You were awake, weren't you?" It was more of a statement than a question.  
  
Amethyst only nodded. "A thousand years have passed, and Queen Beryl has awakened. You are the last to be revived. Do your loyalties still lie with Queen Beryl and the spirit Metallia?"  
  
Amethyst nodded again, a slight movement, her purple eyes serious.  
  
Jadeite handed her the energy-storage crystal, and she took it. She looked startled to see the sunburst symbol on her hand. "It is from the crystal," he commented. "You have a similar one on your forehead. It is really quite striking with your purple eyes."  
  
Amethyst looked as if she was caught between pleasure at the complement and cynicism that the hell she had been through was far too high a price to pay for an attractive marking.  
  
"My name is..." Jadeite began.  
  
"Jadeite," the girl finished. Her voice was the voice of a child, high pitched and soft, in startling contrast to her eyes.  
  
"How did you know that?" Jadeite asked, feeling a little wary that she was using telepathy.  
  
"Someone recognized you," she replied cryptically.  
  
Jadeite was silent for a moment, and then realized that she had found the information from a stolen memory.  
  
"Are you telepathic?" Jadeite asked in a soft voice that indicated confidentiality and trust.  
  
"Not anymore," she replied with the beginnings of a hesitant smile. "I am not alone anymore."  
  
**first posted October 27, 2001***  
  
Author's Notes:  
  
I know, I know, still no Sailor Senshi! Actually, they don't appear in the next chapter either, but be patient with me! If you want to see a dedicated Usagi and Mamoru fanfiction, be on the lookout for another fanfiction I am working on called "Source of Strength."  
  
PLEASE e-mail me at aisuru_chan@yahoo.com with questions or comments or encouragement -- or give me a reivew! I have through Chapters 1-7 and 10 epilogue) written, so more reviews means faster pdates! Remember, my author name is simply Aisuru (not Aisuru-chan). Thank you! And while I do not own Sailor Moon or Jadeite or Nephrite or Zoicite or Kunzite, I do claim Amethyst as my very own!  
  
Once more, I would like to thank Aisuru-chan for Being my editor (of course, I rearranged the story again after she edited - Gomen nasai). I would also like to thank my Koudanshi-chan for his final editing of my stories, even though he is not a fan of Sailor Moon. Can you believe it? 


	3. Chapter 2: An Unusual Partnership

Crystal Tears Chapter 2: An Unusual Partnership  
By Aisuru  
  
  
Although Jadeite would never have believed it, so thorough was his brainwashing and reeducation by Queen Beryl and her minions, he had not been with the Dark Kingdom very long when the battle on the moon resulted in the thousand-year sleep. The Dark Kingdom was all he knew, and he knew it well. He knew that Dark Kingdom citizens, as the humans working in league with the Dark Kingdom were called, despised Dark Kingdom children as everything weak was despised. They were tolerated, however, because much like the rogue dark spirits that were trapped and molded into youma, children with potential could someday become powerful warriors. They even had their uses as children, usually as scavengers of the energy and belongings of the weak. Even knowing this, Dark Kingdom children were regularly preyed upon by the more insecure Dark Kingdom citizens.  
  
Few children were born in the Dark Kingdom, most being captured and reeducated, but children born in the Dark Kingdom were always taken away from their birth mothers and put in children's training camps, where the older children led the younger children and only the strongest survived.   
Children were indoctrinated with Dark Kingdom propaganda, learned the skills they would need to be useful Dark Kingdom citizens, and practiced developing their talents, often on each other.   
  
Now there would be no children's training camps, Jadeite knew, because there was only one child in the entire Dark Kingdom. As the only surviving child of the long sleep, she would be an object of suspicion whether   
Zoicite kept quiet about the mental massacre or not. Alone, she might not survive the day, and Jadeite saw in Amethyst a potentially important asset. He would have to protect her himself. This is how Amethyst became the first   
child in Dark Kingdom history to reside in the private rooms of one of Queen Beryl's own generals.  
  
As Amethyst followed Jadeite to his quarters, she hid her growing anticipation by raising her chin stubbornly and pointedly ignoring the hostile looks of the Dark Kingdom citizens that stood at attention as Jadeite passed by them. Jadeite seemed to ignore her as she quickened her pace for   
a few steps to keep up with his longer stride. The gentle, patient Jadeite had disappeared as soon as they had left the awakening room and were around other citizens. This Jadeite, what Amethyst came to know as her Jadeite, didn't return until he had barked an order to his second in command that no disturbances would be forgiven and slammed the door to his residence in a display of impatient authority.  
  
As soon as the door had closed with a heavy thud, the Jadeite she had awakened to reappeared. "Well, Amethyst-chan," he started with a twinkle in his eye, "Welcome to my humble home."  
  
Amethyst was startled by his sudden change in demeanor. Amethyst-chan?" she questioned in a soft voice, having no memories of being addressed in an endearing manner.  
  
Jadeite laughed, a carefree laugh that he couldn't express in front of the other generals or those working under him. Amethyst dared a hesitant little smile in return.  
  
"So, Amethyst-chan," he began, keeping his tone purposefully light as he sat on a couch, motioning for her to sit in an overstuffed chair. "The computer indicates that your natural talents lie in the realm of gemology.   
Did you make that one?" he asked, pointing to her closed right fist which still held the purple energy storage crystal she had used before her thousand years of isolation.  
  
Amethyst nodded, opening her hand to reveal the little purple gem. It had a slight glow due to the still-trapped life energy it held. After only a moment's hesitation, she handed it over to Jadeite's outstretched palm.  
  
Jadeite studied the little gem closely. "Simple design, rather common actually, but it has held the energy well," he stated, and he set the gem down on a side table. Then the looked up at Amethyst. "Make another one," he said, his voice taking on just enough of an edge that she knew this was an order.  
  
Amethyst hesitated only a moment, but the look in Jadeite's eyes suddenly chilled her, and she knew she had to obey. She closed her eyes to begin the crystal formation, wondering vaguely if he knew that it had taken   
her hours to create that little purple gem. She gathered energy from the surrounding air, and the temperature around her dropped several degrees almost instantaneously. She then envisioned the crystal she wished to create, an exact replica of the little purple energy storage crystal she had   
made over a thousand years before.   
  
She channeled the energy into the formation of the crystal, guiding the intricate lattice of molecules, elements taken from the dust in the air around her, exploring newly assimilated but never before used knowledge   
in the process. Her eyes were still closed, and her hands moved in intricate patterns through the air as she worked. She started to make modifications to the crystal, allowing it to hold more energy while making it more compact in   
size. This bond she broke, that one she restrengthened, until she was satisfied with the result she envisioned in her mind.   
  
When she opened her eyes, a tiny purple stone floated lazily between her outstretched hands. The stone was no larger than a two-carat diamond, but it was more powerful than any she had watched the older children make. She   
allowed her gaze to be swallowed up by the little stone; it had a beauty in its power and an entirely separate beauty that had nothing to do with power, a beauty that was rare indeed in the Dark Kingdom. It was some time before she remembered that there was a world outside the intricate little gem. She lifted her eyes to Jadeite's gaze.  
  
"That is an enchanting stone, Amethyst-chan," he said in a quiet voice, stripped of all emotion. "And quickly made as well. Could you make another one?"  
  
Amethyst was surprised to realize that she had the strength to make another one, that in fact her hands itched to create again. She nodded and closed her eyes, beginning the gather of energy, when Jadeite reached out and grasped her wrist in a painfully tight grasp. Amethyst gasped and   
looked up at the General in surprise and fear.   
  
"Amethyst," he said, his calm voice and expressionless eyes masking a danger Amethyst felt and understood. "Do not show your talents to anyone but me. Understand?" When Amethyst just looked at him, he gave her a good shake. "Do you understand!" he bellowed.  
  
Amethyst gave a little cry of fright. "Yes, sir. I won't let anyone know what I can do! I promise, sir!"  
  
Jadeite let go of her suddenly, and she fell back against the chair, rubbing the injured wrist. He gave a nod as if nothing had happened out of the ordinary. "Continue," he said in a smooth, non-threatening voice.  
  
Amethyst closed her eyes quickly, haunted by a stolen memory of Jadeite losing his temper when a youma was found to be defective. The man to whom the memory belonged watched as his coworker was devoured by a youma of his own creation at Jadeite's direction. She let her unsettled state be her energy as she formed the next crystal, a little more powerful and a little more beautiful than the one before.  
  
When Jadeite finally left Amethyst, the side table by the couch in his quarters was littered with precious little gems. The gems were truly beautiful, Jadeite recalled, dozens of perfectly formed stones in all the hues of the precious and semi-precious jewels humans desire. What made   
the gems all the more beautiful, at least by Dark Kingdom standards, was their incredible power. One or two of these gems could not only quickly drain the nonessential energy from the wearer, but could also channel their darker energies - energies like greed and selfishness - towards temporarily controlling them. This extra feature of the gems was one that Amethyst had thought up herself; she had "remembered" the complicated technique, and incorporated it into the gems after Jadeite had told her the purpose of the   
stones.  
  
Amethyst had made several dozen of the stones, indistinguishable by human technology from diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, garnets, aquamarine, and, of course, amethysts, before she had finally sapped the last   
of her strength.  
  
"You are a dedicated little soldier, aren't you, Amethyst-chan," Jadeite had murmured softly as he picked up the collapsed child and carried her to a small room accessible only through his bedroom, where he thought she   
would be the most safe. He gently laid her on a bedroll, covering her with a soft blanket. "I'm sorry I had to threaten you so," he told the sleeping child, tenderly brushing a purple-hued lock of hair out of her face. "If   
Zoicite ever realized that your gemology skills so greatly surpassed his, even I could not protect you," he explained. In sleep, with the too-adult eyes closed to the world, he could almost pretend that she was just a child. "What other secrets do you hide, Amethyst-chan?" he asked before   
he rose and left the room.  
  
  
*****  
  
  
Author's Notes:  
  
  
PLEASE email me at aisuru_chan@yahoo.com with questions, comments, or encouragement (or criticism if you really want to) -- or leave me a review. Or both. Remember, my author name is simply Aisuru (not Aisuru-chan). I know, I know, you still haven't seen the senshi, but I'm trying to develop the relationship (not like that, you hentai!) between Amethyst and Jadeite.  
  
Don't forget, Amethyst is MINE!!! I have worked really hard to develop her character, so please don't steal her. As you have probably guessed, this will be on the long side, but I have already written the ending, so don't worry that I won't finish it (like I have done with "A Love of ... Science?" on my webpage).  
  
Once again I need to thank Aisuru-chan for editing my story (yes, I changed it after she edited it. This isn't an on-going thing; she edited the prologue through Ch. 2 at the same time). I would also like to thank my Koudanshi-chan, who will edit this story for me because he loves me so much, even though he has ABSOLUTELY NO INTEREST in Sailor Moon. Poor sweetheart. Don't worry, I am trying to work with him. 


	4. Chapter 3: Making Naru's Mother

Crystal Tears Chapter 3: Making Naru's Mother  
By Aisuru   
  
  
A dark swirl with traces of dark energy appeared in an alley in Tokyo. Only a stray cat watched as the swirl grew larger and a blond-haired man appeared in its midst, hovering inches off the ground. He straightened his gray   
uniform and reduced power on his levitation until his boot-clad feet touched the ground. The portal closed.  
  
Jadeite walked out of the alley and into the bright sunlight. His first stop was a clothing store. After a short assessment of the regional fashion, he grabbed a pair of name-brand jeans, a maroon knit shirt, and a baseball cap, and headed into a dressing room. Putting the gray uniform and white gloves in a subspace pocket, he dressed in the local clothing, remembering to remove the tags, and silently teleported back into the alley to avoid a complicated exchange about the local currency.  
  
Now dressed inconspicuously (if you ignore the boots), with the ball-cap shading his eyes from the offensively cheerful sun, he returned to the sidewalk, going in the opposite direction of the clothing store he had just shoplifted. He consulted a hand-drawn map, marked with the jewelry stores that had been ransacked in earlier searches for the elusive silver crystal. Window-shopping, he looked for a jewelry store with high quality gems, where Amethyst's creations would not appear out-of-place, and very few salespeople. He stopped searching when he found Osa-P. The shop was very exclusive, and only one woman, a classy redhead, could be seen interacting with the customers. The customers were all women, and their longing as they gazed upon the highly priced merchandise was so intense that Jadeite was almost tempted to skim off a little of the energy ahead of time.  
  
Marking the Osa-P on his map, he headed towards the deserted alley he would use to teleport back to the Dark Kingdom, stopping when a display in a bookstore window caught his eye. Tucking the map into his jean pocket, he walked into the store. The window display had showcased a book of fairytales. Realizing that Amethyst would be under forced isolation when he could not be with her, for her own safety of course, he thought she might enjoy having a book to read. He easily picked the pocket of another customer, and used the Japanese currency, which the checkout woman called yen, to purchase the gift.  
  
*****  
  
"Not bad, not bad at all!" Zoicite teased, not hiding his appreciation of Jadeite's butt in the blue jeans. Jadeite glared at Zoicite, not at all flattered, and with a snap of his fingers he was clad in his usual gray uniform.   
'That does it, I'll only wear uniforms from now on,' Jadeite thought.  
  
Kunzite cleared his throat, slightly amused at Jadeite's discomfort. "Could we please start the meeting?" he asked. When the generals were all seated, he continued. "Jadeite, report on the child, what was her name again?"  
  
"Her name is Amethyst, sir," he responded. "Her awakening was successful, and she is currently residing in my own rooms. She claims to have no telepathic abilities. I have not yet had the opportunity to assess her abilities   
in the travel of alternative planes."  
  
"What about her gems?" Zoicite asked, suspicious that Jadeite had left out the one talent the child was supposed to possess.  
  
"Her gems?" Jadeite asked as if surprised by the question. "We have all seen her ability at gems," he said, referring to the purple energy-storage gem she had held when they found her. Kunzite raised an eyebrow, wanting more information, so he continued. "I had the chance to study her energy-storage gem. She made it herself. It was simple in design, as one would expect a child to make. I'll admit it held the captured energy very well, but I don't think it was anything special." To make his point, he pulled the purple gem out of a subspace pocket and held it out to Zoicite.  
  
Zoicite snatched the gem from Jadeite and levitated it between her hands. "It's very pretty," Nephrite commented, knowing almost nothing about gems.   
  
"Shut up and let me concentrate!" Zoicite snapped, annoyed that Nephrite had never commented so on Zoicite's gems. The gem slowly rotated, suspended between his hands, and Zoicite closed his eyes, feeling the bonds that made up the gems and the swirling energy trapped within it. It was very simply made, but beautiful in its simplicity. The girl did have talent, but without training she could never   
develop her talent, and Zoicite was going to make sure none of the gemology specialists would ever work with that creepy child.  
  
Zoicite broke his concentration, unceremoniously tossing the stone back to Jadeite. "It's pretty alright," he commented, "Pretty simple. Pretty weak. I don't see how she'll ever amount to anything useful to Queen Beryl's   
cause."  
  
"What do you plan on doing with the child," Kunzite asked.   
  
Jadeite would never share his plans with the other generals, and he realized he needed a cover. "Amethyst visited several of our best youma creators, as you may remember, so she may have assimilated vast amounts of knowledge in that area. I will teach her to create youma."   
  
"You will train her?" Nephrite asked with a smirk. "First she's living with you, now you'll train her in person? I didn't know little girls were your type!"  
  
Jadeite swallowed a burst of anger, forcing his face to be calm, his temper to be level. "You would rather me throw her to those wolves we call the Dark Kingdom citizens? She wouldn't last a day! Rumors are already circulating about the only child survivor of the long sleep." He turned to Kunzite. "If this child is to be under my protection, I must be allowed to protect her from the others under our command."  
  
Kunzite nodded. "Go ahead and train her in youma creation," he stated. "And keep her safe in your quarters. We are planning energy gathering missions on earth, and this will require more youma. I had thought Nephrite should be allowed to investigate her abilities in alternate dimensions, but now I think it better to postpone that until Nephrite can show a little more maturity."  
  
Nephrite glared at this comment. Zoicite giggled, distracted from Amethyst's special treatment by Kunzite's rebuking of Nephrite. Jadeite visibly relaxed. Now he had a good cover for the time he would spend with Amethyst on his energy-gathering plans. 'And who knows,' he wondered, 'Amethyst may actually be able to create a youma or two.'  
  
  
*****  
  
Jadeite returned to his quarters, deep in thought about his first energy-gathering mission, which was scheduled for the next week. He looked at the pile of gems that would be the focus of his mission. "When I replace the gems in Osa-P with those Amethyst created, I will be able to gather energy from all of those foolish women lusting after them," he boasted to himself. He sat down   
picking up one of the gems and letting it levitate above his palm as he studied it. He would need to find settings for the stones and create a youma replacement for the woman in charge of the Osa-P.  
  
As Amethyst was still asleep, trying to regain the energy she had spent in the creation of the gems, he gathered the tiny stones into a silken pouch and prepared for yet another journey to earth.  
  
  
*****   
  
'No more jeans for me,' Jadeite thought as he entered an exclusive store selling men's suits. After careful observation of how the components of the suit fit together and receiving the clerk's aid in selecting one of the most expensive, Jadeite drained the clerk of non-essential energy and left the store. The man would most likely be found within the hour and it would be determined that he suffered from exhaustion. It was doubtful the man would remember his encounter with Jadeite, and even if he did it was unlikely he would be taken seriously.  
  
In his new suit, Jadeite approached a jewelry store several blocks from Osa-P. He asked the elderly man working there if he made custom settings for stones. The man was delighted when Jadeite opened the silken bag and displayed Amethyst's masterpieces. After agreeing to give the man one of the larger diamonds in exchange for his services, Jadeite left the shop, but not before casting an illusion in the shop. Any potential customers would find the shop unusually uninviting, so the man would have plenty of time to work, and the old jeweler, never noticing the passage of time, would likely finish the settings after two or three days of working around the clock. Jadeite allowed himself a sarcastic grin. "Stupid humans," he muttered.  
  
His next stop was the Osa-P. He chose a quiet corner of the jewelry store, made himself inconspicuous by illusion, and watched. The customers called the red-haired woman Osaka-san, so Jadeite considered that this woman must be the owner of the shop. She was friendly with customers, very knowledgeable about gemstones, and was fixed in her prices. As he watched, several customers came   
in to look, grumbling as they left that nothing was ever on sale in Osa-P. It seemed that a sale would be the perfect way to attract energy-donors.  
  
He teleported directly to his quarters, snapping his fingers to become garbed in the gray uniform again. He found Amethyst sitting up on the bedroll, blinking sleepy eyes. He hunched down beside her. "Hello, Amethyst-chan. Have you been awake long?"  
  
Amethyst shook her head in the negative. "Where are the gems?" she asked.  
  
Jadeite raised an eyebrow. "You could tell that they were gone?" he asked, surprised. At her nod, he said, "They are in the hands of an earthling jeweler. He is fitting them into settings so we can go ahead with our plan." When Amethyst only continued to look at him, he realized that she was awaiting orders of what to do next. 'The loyalty of Dark Kingdom children runs deep,' he thought to himself.  
  
"Amethyst," he began, "I would like to train you to be a youma creator. Am I right in assuming that you assimilated such knowledge?" he asked. At her nod he   
continued. "Have you ever made a youma?" he asked, already knowing she would shake her head in the negative. "What exactly do you know about youma creation?"  
  
Amethyst blinked the last of the sleep out of her eyes as she began a discourse on youma creation. She not only knew the methodology of youma creation, but she also related to him the philosophy behind it - why certain youma were better suited for fighting and others for energy gathering, why certain rogue spirits made the most loyal youma, and what exactly was required for a youma to successfully mimic another creature. "Would you like to make a human?" Jadeite asked.  
  
It took Amethyst several days of one-on-one training with Jadeite and a few disguised trips to Tokyo before she had created a youma clone indistinguishable from the original Osaka. While it was common for youma creators to mimic the human form so their youma could blend in with crowds, it was technically very difficult to match a particular human. While Amethyst's Osaka was a bit more exuberant than the original, Jadeite was sure that even those close to Osaka could be convinced of the youma's authenticity once Jadeite had added an illusion or two.  
  
As midnight approached in Tokyo, Jadeite and Amethyst teleported inside the old man's jewelry shop. The old man was keeled over at his workbench in a back room, obviously the first victim of Amethyst's jewels. By some chance luck, he had finished the settings of all the gems except for the large diamond Jadeite had promised as payment. "Keep the diamond," Jadeite said with a cruel gleam in his eye. "And thank you for the energy."   
  
Amethyst collected the pieces of jewelry, admiring the craftsmanship. "You have served us well," she told him, before raising her original purple stone and capturing his remaining life force energy.  
  
  
*****   
  
  
Author's Notes:   
  
PLEASE email me at aisuru_chan@yahoo.com or leave me a review. I need   
feedback! Let me know, do you like Amethyst? Or do you think she is pure evil? Come on, guys, give the girl a break, she is only six years old - give or take a thousand years. Of course, she did just kill an unconscious old man... 


	5. Chapter 4: A Surprise for Jadeite

Crystal Tears Chapter 4: A Surprise for Jadeite  
By Aisuru  
aisuru_chan@yahoo.com   
  
  
Amethyst was excited as she teleported with Jadeite and the Osaka-clone youma, Morgue, to the OSA-P. She held several silk pouches full of her gemstones. Each stone was set in gold or silver to formrings, earrings, bracelets, and necklace charms. Amethyst's grin grew larger as she thought of that old man. Although she had been scolded by Jadeite for killing him, his life-force energy would allow her to put the finishing touches on her youma.  
  
Footsteps were heard descending a staircase, and the original Osaka walked through the door separating her upstairs apartment from the showroom. Amethyst looked back and forth between Morgue and Osaka. "Watch her carefully," she whispered to Morgue. "You need to copy her grace and elegance."  
  
The youma nodded as if it understood. They watched as Osaka looked around the showroom, apparently deep in thought. She sighed, and then set about straightening displays and putting reduced-price stickers on the tiny price tags attached to each piece of jewelry. She was so deep in thought that she failed to notice the intruders.   
  
Amethyst looked to Jadeite, and he nodded. She handed the silk pouches of energy-gathering jewelry to Jadeite, and pulled her purple energy-storage crystal out of a sub-space pocket. "Don't kill this one," Jadeite warned in a whisper. Amethyst nodded but kept her eyes on the crystal and her target. The gem held a swirling glow from the old man's energy she had trapped the night before. The glow intensified as she began to draw the energy from Osaka.  
  
The woman gasped, probably feeling the chill associated with crystallographic energy draining, and tried to turn around. Amethyst increased the gem's pull on the woman's energy, and Osaka collapsed to the floor. Amethyst hadn't noticed Morgue approach the woman, but as the woman closed her eyes from exhaustion, her apparent twin leaned over her, curious. "Thank you for your energy," Amethyst said in her childish voice, feeling the swirls of the woman's energy within her   
purple gem.  
  
"Good job, Amethyst-chan," Jadeite said after checking the woman's pulse. "You didn't kill her."  
  
"Why shouldn't I kill her?" Amethyst asked as Jadeite picked up the woman and carried her towards a downward staircase.  
  
Jadeite felt a sudden burst of anger that she was questioning him, but stifled it when he realized she was just curious. "Well, if we killed humans every time we drained their energy, we wouldn't be able to drain their energy again," he replied. "Also, Metallia will need slaves when she is awakened. Humans would make good slaves for her." He carried Osaka down the stairs and into a basement storage room. The smell of cardboard and carbon paper from boxes of receipt pads filled the room.  
  
"Someone had a memory of once being human," Amethyst stated, referring to a memory she had stolen during the long sleep. "Is that true? Did we used to be human?" Amethyst asked as Jadeite bound the woman's wrists and ankles with a course rope.   
  
"We are no longer human," Jadeite answered her as he shoved a rag into Osaka's mouth before tying her gag. He stood and looked at the woman on the floor. Her red hair spilled around her on the concrete floor, her face was pale with energy loss. "We are no longer weak and without purpose. We serve the Dark Kingdom, and the energy of the Dark Kingdom now flows through our veins as our blood."  
  
With Osaka out of the way it was easy for Jadeite, Amethyst, and the youma Morgue to exchange Amethyst's creations with the real jewelry. Amethyst gave Morgue some of the energy she had stolen from the old man and the real Osaka. "This should help you maintain your form as long as you stay calm," the child warned the monster-in-disguise, "but if you get over-excited your form will degrade."   
  
Amethyst felt another rush of excitement; the first real mission of the   
Dark Kingdom since the awakening involved her crystals and her youma!   
  
When the time came to open the store to customers, Jadeite turned to Amethyst. "Now you and I go back to the Dark Kingdom. Let Morgue work in peace."   
Amethyst wanted to argue with him; she had played a big role in this mission, and she wanted to watch! As she opened her mouth to disagree with him, however, Jadeite narrowed his eyes menacingly. Amethyst heeded the warning, stepping closer to Jadeite's side so he could teleport her back to the Dark Kingdom.  
  
  
*****   
  
Jadeite left Amethyst in his quarters under force field and teleported into Queen Beryl's throne room. He never left Amethyst in his quarters without the forcefield in place, a shield that prevented any other than him from entering and that also prevented Amethyst from leaving. Amethyst was an intelligent child, if child was even the right word for her, but Jadeite wouldn't put it past her to wander about the Dark Kingdom when his back was turned. She was too anxious to serve the Dark Kingdom, and was not content sitting alone in his quarters unless she was busy at a task.  
  
"Has the Silver Crystal been found yet?" Queen Beryl was asking an assembly of Dark Kingdom citizens and youma.  
  
"No," the assembly replied in unison.  
  
"Our Great Leader needs energy. If we don't have the Silver Crystal we must use the energy of humans," Queen Beryl instructed.  
  
'Here's my opportunity,' Jadeite thought, teleporting before her throne. "Queen Beryl-sama," he began, bowing deeply. "I, Jadeite, am ready. Morgue, one of my youma, is already gathering human energy."  
  
Queen Beryl looked at her general with a critical eye. "You will bring it to me, Jadeite," she commanded.  
  
"Yes," he answered, and teleported away.  
  
*****   
  
Jadeite was supervising the inflow of energy in a dark chamber in the Dark Kingdom. A large glowing ball levitated above his open hand. "The stupid humans are greedier than I could have hoped," he smirked to himself. "Amethyst has become a very useful commodity. And to think that Zoicite wanted to kill her before investigating her potential value to the Dark Kingdom." The energy Morgue was stealing from the wearers of Amethyst's jewelry would be given directly to Queen Beryl for the spirit Metallia. It would bring power to the Dark Kingdom and power to himself. A small part of him recognized that the more influence he had in the Dark Kingdom, the more protection he could provide to Amethyst.  
  
As these thoughts were running through his head, a slight complication had occurred in the OSA-P. Without warning, the ball of glowing energy flickered and vanished. Furious that anything might be disrupting the flow of energy into the Dark Kingdom, he teleported directly to the basement storage room in OSA-P. A wide-eyed Osaka looked up at him, trying to scream against her gag and struggling against the ropes that bound her. "I don't have time to deal with you," he said with a snarl. He reached his hand towards her and sucked up the energy she had regained while unconscious Jadeite then ascended the stairs to the OSA-P showroom.  
  
The first thing Jadeite noticed was a heavy, sickening feeling of positive energy that filled the air. It was nauseatingly familiar, reminding Jadeite of the energy the generals had encountered during their battle on the moon a thousand years before. Jadeite shook his head to clear the memories, and looked around. The deep gashes in the wall and floor told Jadeite that Morgue had not maintained her Osaka form. Morgue, however, had vanished. Jadeite couldn't even sense the rogue spirit that the youma had been formed around. A few glass display cases had been smashed, as if someone had pushed them over in a struggle. Several customers, all woman, littered the splinted hardwood floor. They still wore Amethyst's gems, but without Morgue to channel the collected energy they would wake up soon.   
  
Jadeite had been so enchanted by the large ball of energy he had been gathering that he had failed to separate it from the incoming energy as it arrived into the Dark Kingdom. This meant that all of the collected energy had dissipated. All of his hard work had come to naught, and he had no idea what had disrupted his plan. Frustration turned to fear as Jadeite realized that he would have no good excuse to give Queen Beryl about his failure. "Stupid humans," he scowled as he teleported away.  
  
*****   
  
  
Author's notes:   
  
I know, this chapter wasn't very long! You might want to read "A Long Day for Osaka-san," a one-part fanfiction that shows this OSA-P collection mission from Naru's mother's point of view. It is posted on www.moonromance.com right now. Maybe I'll move it to fanfiction.net eventually. 


	6. Chapter 5: Amethyst's Discoveries

Crystal Tears Chapter 5: Amethyst's Discoveries  
By Aisuru  
aisuru_chan@yahoo.com   
  
  
"Great job collecting energy, Jadeite," Nephrite taunted. The generals were seated at a large table to discuss Dark Kingdom policies and strategy.  
  
"Shut up," Jadeite retorted, in a horrible mood. He had been forced to appear before Queen Beryl, and all he could offer her was the measly energy he had taken from Osaka. Beryl was not pleased with his explanation about the aura of positive energy he had felt.  
  
"Yes, Nephrite, shut up," Kunzite ordered, exercising his authority as the commander of the four generals. Then he turned to Jadeite. "What happened?" he asked in an eerily calm voice.  
  
Jadeite growled in frustration. "I have no idea," he muttered. Then he looked up at the other generals. "We were gathering so much energy, and all of a sudden it dissipated. I teleported to the Osa-P, and it was complete chaos. The owner of the Osa-P was awake, the customers were waking up, and the youma had vanished without a trace."  
  
"That was the youma that creepy child created, right?" Zoicite asked, knowing perfectly well that it was. "I'm not surprised it vanished. It was probably defective."  
  
"It was not defective," Jadeite exclaimed defensively. "I oversaw its creation myself!"  
  
"Whatever!" Zoicite countered.  
  
Kunzite cleared his throat to stop the exchange. Then he returned his attention to Jadeite. "You mentioned some sort of positive aura to Queen Beryl."  
  
Jadeite nodded. "It was disgusting," he said with a shudder. "It reminded me of the power used by the people of the Moon Kingdom, but much weaker."  
  
"The Moon Kingdom?" Zoicite said, jumping to his feet. He looked around him uneasily. "Have they returned?"  
  
"Sit down," Kunzite said, annoyed.  
  
"Yes, Kunzite-sama," Zoicite said, embarrassed by the fear he was feeling. He remembered Queen Serenity's power too clearly.  
  
Jadeite caught the attention of the other generals with a movement of his hands. "I have a plan to find out what happened," Jadeite said, an evil gleam returning to his eyes. 'I'll perform another human energy-gathering campaign,' he hought, the plan only then occurring to him, 'and I'll make sure if effects enough humans that whatever disrupted the last mission will return, but this time 'll have Amethyst on site to report on the nature of the interference.'  
  
Kunzite nodded. "Go ahead with your plan," he said, not really caring about the nature of Jadeite's plan as long as it was accomplished, "assuming you have Queen Beryl's permission, of course."  
  
"Of course," Jadeite replied with a submissive nod to the leader of the generals.  
  
He walked away from the generals then, further plotting the details of his next energy-gathering mission. It would have to be highly visible to attract the attention of the source of that positive aura. He heard Nephrite calling after him: "You might want to make the youma yourself this time."  
  
*****   
  
Jadeite walked the sidewalks in Tokyo, searching for another target for energy collection. He was dressed in his suit, this time with the addition of a long brown trench coat and brown detective hat. A long line of adolescents caught his attention. They were waiting in line to have an old man tell their fortunes. Jadeite joined the line, listening to the conversations of the humans.   
  
"He's pretty accurate, isn't he?" the girl in front of him was saying.  
  
"Wow, a line already?" someone else was saying.  
  
Jadeite smirked to himself as he left the line and walked down the street. "So humans like to have their fortunes read?" he thought. "Stupid humans. There is no way that man can know their fortunes using that bunch of sticks. I'll give them a fortune that will come true," he chuckled evilly.   
  
*****   
  
Amethyst sat in Jadeite's quarters, once again making crystals. These crystals, however, had to be very tiny. They would decorate the tarot cards the youma would use to gather the energy of the humans. Jadeite had insisted on making the youma himself this time, and the result wasn't nearly as impressive as it would have been if she had made it. The youma scarcely looked human, what with those spooky eyes and weird hair. Amethyst knew better than to disagree with Jadeite, however, and instead contented herself with making the gem the youma fortune-teller wore on her forehead.  
  
Amethyst tossed her hair away from her face as she worked. The crystals used in the cards were of her own design, complicated stones that would absorb the energy of their wearer very slowly while controlling their actions. Gathering energy was only secondary in this mission, Jadeite had explained. The real point was to attract the attention of the source of that positive aura Jadeite had felt when the last mission fell apart. Only by learning the true nature of the interruption could it be prevented in the future.  
  
She smiled to herself when she remembered that she would be allowed to watch this youma work, but Jadeite had warned she must observe only and not be involved in the mission itself. "It would be too dangerous," he had said, stroking her cheek gently with his hand. "You are too precious, Amethyst-chan, to risk losing you to an unknown enemy."  
  
"Precious," Amethyst repeated to herself. Despite his short temper, Jadeite was a ray of light in a life that kept her isolated from all other Dark Kingdom citizens. She narrowed her eyes as she thought of the citizens Jadeite had warned her about. They would be jealous of her talents, he had said, and would destroy her without a second thought. "Especially Zoicite," she muttered. Jadeite had told her how Zoicite had wanted to kill her before she woke up, and Zoicite's jealousy of anyone else talented in gemology was well known, even to her.  
  
*****   
  
When Jadeite entered Queen Beryl's throne-room, she had the Dark Kingdom citizens and youmas assembled. "Hurry," she told her minions, referring to finding the Silver Crystal. "Our Great Leader waits for adequate energy."  
  
"It shall be done," they reply with one voice.  
  
Queen Beryl then sensed Jadeite's presence. "Jadeite," she called, and he teleported in front of her, bowing. "You heard them. We have not yet found the Silver Crystal. I require human energy instead."  
  
"Your majesty Queen Beryl-sama," he replied, "I have everything already arranged."  
  
*****   
  
Amethyst watched intently from her position behind some illusionary curtains. The psychic's house, from the sign outside reading "Sage of Juban Town" to the incense floating up from ornate lamps on pillars, was entirely illusion. A crowd of human adolescents filled the room, already under the youma's spell.   
  
A nerdy boy with enormous glasses sat in front of the youma. "I still don't think it looks human," Amethyst muttered to herself, recognizing that Jadeite would have needed to use a powerful illusion spell for the humans to accept it as one of their own.   
  
Tarot cards were arranged in a circle on the table. The youma clapped its hands, and the cards stood upright on their own. 'What a cheesy thing to do,' Amethyst thought, but the boy seemed impressed. "Awesome!" he gushed. Amethyst rolled her eyes.  
  
"Look into my eyes," the youma commanded. The nerdy boy did just that, instantly falling into a trance. 'I can't believe they are so gullible!' Amethyst thought. Not one of the humans had thought the request strange. The youma selected a card, which floated towards the boy. "You are the servant of a charming demon," she told him.  
  
"I will act as my desire dictates," the boy finished for the youma without prompting.  
  
The youma grinned. "Soon I can extract his energy," she said.  
  
When it grew later, the youma sent the adolescent humans to their respective homes. They would all forget about their experiences with the Sage of Juban Town until the youma recalled them, using the crystals embedded in the cards each carried.  
  
*****   
  
Jadeite came to retrieve Amethyst later that evening. Her teleportation skills were not yet stable enough to allow her to teleport between the earth and the Dark Kingdom safely. It frustrated Amethyst, but Jadeite was secretly relieved. If Amethyst were physically capable of teleporting long distances on her own, she would be harder to control and protect.  
  
"So, what did you think?" he asked her when they were back in his quarters. "Your gems seem to be working nicely."  
  
Amethyst tried not to blush at his complement. "Your plan seems to be working smoothly, Jadeite-sama," she stated instead, steering the conversation away from her gems.  
  
"Yes, it does," Jadeite said, obviously pleased with himself. "Humans are so stupid. Tomorrow we will gather their young rebellious energy."  
  
"Maybe we will find whoever ruined our last mission," Amethyst said.  
  
"That is your job," Jadeite answered sharply, annoyed that Amethyst had reminded him of his past failure.  
  
"Of course, Jadeite-sama," she replied softly. Then she said, "Your illusions are very powerful. None of them ever suspected that the psychic's house isn't real."  
  
"I know," Jadeite said with a smirk. "Humans are so foolish." It didn't escape Amethyst's attention that Jadeite seemed to enjoy belittling the earth's humans. "You have been confined for so long," he said to Amethyst with a sympathetic look. "Tomorrow, use your own rebellious feelings to guide the humans under our control."  
  
"I will," Amethyst agreed with a smile.  
  
"You must remain hidden," he cautioned her. "I want you to find out what presence is getting in our way, but if one of the generals were to see you on earth..." he began. He didn't have to finish. Amethyst shuddered.  
  
"I definitely will," she agreed.  
  
"I hope so," Jadeite said, almost tenderly. "You are too precious to me, too important to the Dark Kingdom cause. Keeping you safe is one of my highest priorities."  
  
*****   
  
Amethyst was enjoying this mission. The adolescents thought up plenty of dirty tricks on their own, such as laughing out loud in the middle of class and tripping their teacher. One boy even flipped up his teacher's skirt! Amethyst gave them a few ideas of her own, such as smashing the windows of the school. She pretended it was the faces of the other three generals that the rocks were being thrown at. "If it wasn't for them, I would be free to come and go in the Dark Kingdom," she grumbled, conveniently forgetting that any one of the Dark Kingdom citizens would probably be happy to take her out.  
  
When the group wandered away from the school grounds and towards the illusion psychic's house, she followed. It would soon be time to gather their energy. She licked her lips in anticipation. She had always loved energy gathering.  
  
Behind the curtain again, Amethyst watched the assembly of adolescents. "Everybody has done a good job," the youma praised the group sitting on the floor in front of her. The kids muttered amongst themselves about how much fun they were having, unaware that even at that moment their energy was being drawn off by the youma and being collected by Jadeite.  
  
Then a voice was heard through the illusion door at the entrance to the illusion psychic's house: "What's worse than middle aged folks being miffed by 'young is beautiful' are those who don't care about other people!"  
  
"What is that supposed to mean?" Amethyst wondered. She could feel the pure aura of the speaker before she even entered the room. It was weak, but radiated such goodness that is made Amethyst feel physically ill.  
  
The speaker kicked open the door. "I am the sailor-suited soldier fighting for love and justice, Sailor Moon!" she cried out.  
  
"Sailor Moon?" the youma echoed.  
  
The intruder continued. "In the name of the Moon, I'll punish you!" Not impressed, the youma picked up a stack of tarot cards, hurling them at the girl. As the intruder ducked the tarot cards, which stuck into the wall behind her, Amethyst memorized the girl's appearance to relate to Jadeite. Long blond hair was done up in buns from which long ponytails emerged. She wore a golden-colored tiara on her head that seemed to emit some sort of power, as did the broach the girl wore over the bow on the front of her shirt. The outfit did look a lot like the school uniforms the children in Tokyo always wore, but the skirt was much shorter and was complemented by red boots and white gloves.  
  
The youma instructed the controlled adolescents to attack Sailor Moon. "Stop it! Get away from me!" the girl cried, running until she was backed against a wall. "Get any closer and you'll be in trouble!" she threatened. She was too busy with the adolescents to notice the youma, which now looked like a monster, the hair ending in cruel claws.  
  
A flower, which Amethyst would later learn was a rose, flew across the room in front of the youma. While it appeared to only distract the youma, Amethyst noticed that is actually severed the youma's ties to the adolescents. They froze in position, stunned.  
  
"Another intruder? Who is that?" the youma yelled, annoyed.  
  
"Tuxedo Kamen!" Sailor Moon cried out, answering the youma's question.  
  
Tuxedo Kamen, a tall man in a formal black and white outfit, a red-lined cape, and a sort of goofy top hat, ignored the youma and faced Sailor Moon. "No matter how hopeless the situation is, you must not give up!" he instructed.  
  
"Okay," Sailor Moon agreed, cheered by this corny pep-talk.  
  
When the disappearing form of Tuxedo Kamen distracted Sailor Moon, the youma attacked her directly. Sailor Moon dodged by luck alone, and the youma's hair-claws ripped the floor to shreds. "That looks so painful!" Sailor Moon cried.  
  
"Sailor Moon, you should use your Moon Tiara!" said a disembodied voice. Amethyst never did find its source. Sailor Moon, however, reacted. She removed her tiara, and it transformed into a disk of positive energy. "Moon Tiara... Action!" she cried, flinging it towards the youma. With horrible screams, the youma was vaporized into a pile of dust, a tarot card sitting in the dust.  
  
Amethyst felt the energy returning to the adolescents. They blinked out of their stupor. "I did it!" Sailor Moon cried, as if she hadn't expected she would. "You're OK now," she told the kids before running out.  
  
"Jadeite will not be happy about this," Amethyst muttered, waiting behind the curtains for him to fetch her. He teleported almost immediately, grabbed hold of Amethyst's arm rather roughly, removed the illusion with a sweep of his hand, and teleported both of them back to his Dark Kingdom quarters.  
  
*****   
  
There were suspicions that this Sailor Moon may have been left over from the Moon Kingdom of so long ago. Her energy signatures were similar, but much weaker. Jadeite set up many more energy collection schemes, but Amethyst was always excluded from their performance for her safety.   
  
Locked in Jadeite's room, totally alone, she practiced using the knowledge she had gleaned during her long imprisonment. She worked magic with her original purple energy stone, which Jadeite had returned to her, adjusting the bonds until it was a truly superior stone. Her tinier stones were almost always a part of Jadeite's plans, but she had never shown him her modifications of the purple stone. She teleported between rooms in Jadeite's quarters, levitated for extended periods of time, and even practiced making youma. Her youma were never used again, with the exception of the Shanellas, which were small and disguised as furry creatures, but in reality fed on feeling of loneliness, feelings Amethyst knew all too well.   
  
When Amethyst was the loneliest, she would look through book of earth mythology that Jadeite had stolen for her on one of his first scouting missions in Tokyo, the mission where he had discovered the OSA-P jewelry store. Amethyst was surprised to find that, with enough focus, she could summon these creatures into Jadeite's quarters. She only attempted this with the smallest of creatures, such as the fairies, and she was always careful to return them quickly so Jadeite would not find out. The activity brought her joy, but Jadeite would probably consider it a danger to her safety.  
  
In the course of his energy gathering schemes, Jadeite had faced off with Sailor Moon in person, using his telekinesis to stop her tiara in mid-flight and his force fields to block her other attacks. Tuxedo Kamen had always shown up, however, and Jadeite would retreat, sensing some sort of hidden power in the man that he did not want to tangle with alone. Eventually another Sailor Senshi showed up, and then another. Called Sailor Mercury and Sailor Mars, their attacks used the very elements of the earth. The youma had to be stronger in response, which took more and more energy and made Queen Beryl angrier and angrier as each of Jadeite's schemes failed. Of course, Jadeite was gathering energy for Queen Beryl; he never returned entirely empty handed, but the big schemes always failed in the end, and the energy was never enough.  
  
Amethyst was aware that the schemes never lasted long, but she was never aware of the full scope of the problem. Jadeite would return from a mission, grumpy after a bad meeting with Queen Beryl or taunting from the stupid generals, and she would cheer him up. She would show him her latest gemstone, a miniaturized low-power youma, or show off how long she could levitate. He would smile at her and relax, enjoying the carefree spirit she only showed when he was around.  
  
Then, after yet another failed scheme, something involving airplanes and telekinesis, he had failed to return. Amethyst was surprised when General Kunzite stepped into Jadeite's quarters. "You must be Amethyst. I would tell you that Jadeite had told me all about you, but in fact he has been very tight-lipped regarding you."  
  
Amethyst met his cool gaze with purple fire in her eyes. "What are you doing here?" she challenged. She vaguely wondered why Jadeite's shields had failed.  
  
Kunzite raised a white eyebrow at her tone. "My, my, what insolence, what fire!" he had exclaimed mockingly. "Did you speak to Jadeite in that tone?"  
  
Amethyst felt sick to her stomach and her world tilted. "Why did you say 'did'?" she accused, and then, "What did you do to him!"  
  
Kunzite only chuckled. "It isn't what I did to him, little girl," he said. "It was Queen Beryl herself." Kunzite held up a glowing ball of energy, displaying within it the scene that had unfolded in Queen Beryl's throne room only hours before:  
  
Jadeite teleports into Queen Beryl's   
throne room. He is obviously injured. "Qu...   
Queen Beryl-sama," he stutters in pain.  
"You fool!" Queen Beryl explodes in anger.   
"You come crawling back to me?"  
"Queen Beryl-sama," Jadeite says desperately,   
"The Sailor Senshi's true forms..."  
"No excuses!" the Queen screams. Then she   
narrows her eyes: "Sleep forever!"  
A white light flashes from the Queen's eyes.   
"Queen Beryl-sama!" he cries as he is encased in   
crystal.  
"Dispose of the useless servant," Queen Beryl   
spits out. The crystal-encased Jadeite vanished.  
"The task now falls on you, Nephrite!" the   
Queen announces.  
"Jadeite was a fool. I will not disappoint   
you." Nephrite says with an evil laugh.  
  
Amethyst refused to cry as the scene played out before her. She knew that Queen Beryl's words, 'Sleep forever,' did not refer to a normal sleep, but to an eternity of isolated consciousness, much like the thousand-year isolation she had experienced. Amethyst let a cool anger burn within her, dispelling the fear she felt for her own safety and the pain of losing her only friend. Her programmed loyalty would never let her turn her anger on her beloved Queen Beryl, so it found another source. 'The Sailor Senshi will pay for this!' she vowed.  
  
*****   
  
Author's Notes:   
  
I told you this chapter would be longer! What is Amethyst going to do without Jadeite? How will she get her revenge on the Sailor Senshi? Stay tuned for the next exciting chapter! But please review while you wait. I NEED REVIEWS! 


	7. Chapter 6: Amethyst Challenges the Sensh...

Crystal Tears Chapter 6: Amethyst Challenges the Senshi  
by Aisuru  
aisuru_chan@yahoo.com  
  
  
General Kunzite had left Amethyst shortly after revealing Jadeite's fate. Jadeite was gone, and he wouldn't be coming back. Feeling more alone than she had since the long sleep, Amethyst sat on the couch with the book of mythology. "There are worlds beyond here," she told herself, "Worlds where I would not be alone, if only I could reach them."  
  
While Amethyst could reach these worlds to summon creatures, she had never been able to go physically to these other worlds. She flipped through the familiar pages abstractedly, letting her mind wander. She found her thoughts returning to that last child, the one she had killed while extracting his knowledge of creature summoning.   
Whenever Amethyst summoned, she felt that somehow she was fulfilling his dream for him. "That is a little twisted," she muttered to herself, recognizing the irony.  
  
Amethyst returned her gaze to the book. A sketch of a fierce dragon glared back at her. Its scales were a black-edged crimson, and Amethyst knew the two colors would fight for dominance as the creature moved. Its eyes glowed a molten yellow, reflecting the fire in its belly. Its teeth were blackened with its own smoke. "If I were as powerful as this dragon," Amethyst murmured, "I would have a   
real chance at revenging Jadeite's torment. This dragon could rip the Sailor Senshi limb from limb!" She froze, her eyes wide as an idea came to her. Then her eyes narrowed as she calculated the plan. "I will be as powerful as this dragon," she declared. "I will summon him, and he will do my bidding!"   
  
*****   
  
An odd, purplish haze appeared in an alley somewhere in Tokyo. The haze rapidly expanded, and a child stepped out of it. Her hair, which she wore in a messy braid that she had probably done herself, was purplish-white in color. She held a glowing purple crystal in one hand. On closer inspection, a purple sunburst design could be seen on this same hand. A similar pattern adorned her forehead. The color of her hair, her intricate tattoo-like decorations, the glowing crystal, and her unearthly method of transport were unusual enough, but what really frightened the man in the alley only meters from where the young girl emerged, was the child's eyes. As the purple haze evaporated, it was more obvious that this girl's eyes were the strangest shade of purple. Not a purplish-brown or violet-blue that could be considered exotic and still human. No, her eyes were living   
purple ice, and they froze him with the look of hatred and possession she directed towards him. He found he couldn't look away from her as she raised the glowing purple crystal in his direction. "Thank you," she said. The man vaguely noted that the child's voice was too sweet, too innocent, to belong to the same girl as those intense eyes. He had no time for any other thoughts before he crumbled to the ground, drained of energy.   
  
'That was too easy!' Amethyst thought, pleased with her success so far. Without Jadeite's force field in place, it had been child's play to teleport to earth. Before even leaving the alley she had collected a significant amount of energy. Even with Jadeite's repeated explanation, she had never understood the new Dark Kingdom policy of draining only non-essential energy, finding it a waste of time, so she had disregarded it. The real power was in the final burst of life-energy emitted at the victim's death. 'He is probably thankful to have given his life to service the Dark Kingdom,' she thought, not bothering to remember that this energy was not going to the Dark Kingdom's plans, but to fulfill her own.  
  
Amethyst could not cast an illusion spell, as Jadeite would have, so she would just have to go into this world as she was. She smoothed down her dress and tried to assume an innocent look, but innocent looks were not her forte. 'The first thing I need to do is collect more energy,' she thought. 'It is going to take a lot of energy to summon a creature as large and as powerful as a dragon.' Pulling the mythology book out of a subspace pocket, she leafed through to the picture of the dragon. Using this dragon, she would   
defeat the Sailor Senshi with ease. According to the book, dragons were highly intelligent, unlike the stupid youma the Dark Kingdom insisted on using to gather energy stores. Amethyst smiled to herself; she would get her revenge.  
  
As she stepped from the dim alley and into the cheery light of a Sunday morning, she scanned the bustling Tokyo sidewalk stretching to either side of her. It was still early but there were many people going intently to their own destinations. Though gathering the energy from the nice gentleman just laid waste was simpler that she imagined, Amethyst was hesitant to unleash this ability before the   
current populous. She needed her energy gathering to be done secretly, or the Sailor Senshi would appear before she had summoned her dragon. Aside from avoiding premature discovery by her adversaries to be - the senshi - it was unclear if she could drain the energy of several humans at once. Energy draining with her crystal took concentration, and she wouldn't be able to drain a person of energy while evading capture or attack by other humans.  
  
'I need to find some isolated humans,' Amethyst thought. As she watched, a group of giggling adolescent girls entered a beauty parlor. Two men exited a coffee shop, the bell on the door chiming brightly, the men nursing their Styrofoam cups like something precious. A boy pulled on his mother's arm as they walked by, begging her to buy the newest sugary cereal at the grocery store.  
  
Only one building lacked the buzz of conversation and loitering patrons - the library. It stood in elegant silence amng the other buildings, its brick surface proper, decorative molding borrowed from another era, the wrought iron handrail on the front steps curved gracefully in loops and whirls. As Amethyst watched, a single figure approached the building, pulling open the heavy wooden doors and slipping inside. 'This is the perfect place to find my next victim,' she thought.  
  
The inside of the building was dimly lit as older uildings tend to be. Other than the occasional muffled cough or the turning of a page, the silence of the room hung heavy around her. The building smelled of polished wood and old books. In fact, books were everywhere. They crowded the shelves that lined the walls, reaching the vaulted ceiling, and filled row after row of bookcases. The weight of her own mythology book Jadeite had given her now was somewhat smaller in comparison. Memory of the hours she had recently spent learning about the creatures from other worlds modified her next actions. 'I'll collect energy here,' she thought, 'but I'll not summon the dragon here. These books are too precious to be damaged by the dragon's fire.' She idly fingered the spine of her tomb.   
  
Beyond the nearest bookcases were large wooden tables. Seated around the tables were quiet absorbed readers. On closer inspection, it became apparent that a few of the more silent patrons were actually asleep. If it weren't for the presence of an ebony-haired man that kept glancing around the library suspiciously, Amethyst would have collected the energy of the sleepers in the fashion she had so recently used. The way that man was acting, however, she doubted she could do so and remain undetected.   
  
Amethyst continued on, eventually finding a small room in a far corner of the building. Here, a woman sat behind a desk, mending the spine of a well-used book. In fact the room was full of similar books in various stages of disrepair. She looked up at Amethyst as she entered the room, peering at the odd child through eyeglasses that might have been as old as the book she was trying to mend, and nearly as thick. The woman wore a faded brown dress, and her brown hair was liberally streaked with gray. "Oh, my, you startled me!" the woman exclaimed in her hushed librarian voice. Squinting oddly in her direction she continued, "Did you find a damaged book, child?"  
  
"Damaged?" Amethyst echoed, surprised that an adult was   
speaking to her without hostility. Then she looked down at the mythology book now gripped comfortingly in her hands. She had tried to be careful with it, she really had, but now she noticed that the cover did hang a little loosely from the pages. "I suppose it is a little damaged," she continued in her soft, childish voice, "but this is my book."  
  
"Oh, my," the woman said again, "That sure is a big book for your age," she said cheerfully, obviously unaware that the child in front of her was over a thousand years old. She leaned forward, giving Amethyst a conspiratorial glance. "If you don't tell the other librarians, I'll fix it for you."  
  
"Will I get it back?" Amethyst asked.  
  
The woman was clearly amused. "Of course! And I can fix it right now. I'm sure you won't want to be without your book any longer than you have to. Just set it down on the desk and I'll get right to it!"  
  
Amethyst couldn't resist giving a small smile. After only a moment's hesitation, she set the heavy book on the woman's desk. The woman picked up the book, chattering while she worked. She put her face mere inches from the embossed title on the cover before she could read it. It was obvious the woman's vision was quite poor. "Oh, my, I just love mythology," she said. "I used to sit under a   
cherry tree in the park and read about damsels in distress and their fairy godmothers while the other children played their silly games. But do you know what my favorite stories were about?" she asked, once again leaning forward as if she was sharing a big secret.  
  
"What?" Amethyst asked, intrigued by the woman.  
  
"My favorite stories were the ones about the dragons!" the woman said with a smile.  
  
Amethyst grinned back. "Mine too!" she exclaimed.   
  
The woman chuckled and handed back the book. "Thank you," Amethyst said, inspecting the firmly attached cover. Then she paused. Those words triggered her memory of her mission, to collect energy, summon the dragon, and kill the Sailor Senshi. She hardened her heart and narrowed her eyes at the woman that had been so kind to her. "Thank you," she repeated, raising her arm towards the woman and pointing the now-glowing purple stone in her direction. The woman slumped forward limply as her energy was efficiently rained,   
her face resting against the smooth leather cover of the book she had been repairing before Amethyst's arrival. Amethyst pulled the stone away, removing its effect before the final living surge of energy left the myopic woman. 'I am not becoming soft-hearted,' she told herself as she left the building, rejecting the idea of using any of the other librarians or patrons for energy gathering. 'These people   
have uses beyond the energy I could take. They care for books.'   
  
As Amethyst looked for her next victim, she also searched for the best place to summon the dragon. She followed a group of children from a distance, and found herself in the park. There was a big open field, now being used by a boy's soccer team, which would easily accommodate her dragon. There were also shade trees nearby that the dragon could catch on fire. Birds chirped in these trees,  
the water splashed merrily in a fountain, and the sounds of laughter was everywhere. A young girl was tossing bits of bread into the lake, feeding swimming birds of some sort, and lovers enjoyed the semi-privacy of rowboats.  
  
Amethyst ducked out of sight behind a clump of trees as she pulled out her energy storage crystal. She held the crystal up to her forehead, feeling the new swirls of energy. She savored the energy, which she could taste when connected to the crystal in this manner. "I'll need more energy yet, to summon the dragon and have my revenge on the Sailor Senshi," she muttered. "I can't wait until I hear their cries of pain and anguish as the dragon destroys them!"  
  
She was about to leave the park in search of more secluded victims when she heard a soft moan coming from behind her, followed by a stifled giggle. Curious, Amethyst turned and crept towards the sound, deeper into the clump of trees. Two teenagers were locked in a heated embrace, alternating between unskilled kisses and hesitant touches.   
  
"Oh, you don't know what you do to me!" the boy muttered, burying his face in her hair.  
  
The girl giggled, stroking the back of his head. "And what do I do to you?" she murmured, trying to sound seductive.  
  
The boy groaned. "Mmmmh, you make me feel weak all over!"  
  
Amethyst gave a twisted smile. She always loved a paradox! 'No,' she thought, 'This will make you feel weak all over!' She raised her crystal towards the two unaware lovers, and its swirling glow brightened by degrees as it stole the life-energy of the young lovers. Seeing no usefulness in these giggling fools, she drained them entirely, relishing the final burst of energy as their lives   
were snuffed out. The teenagers now lay in the dirt under the trees, their still bodies in an embrace of sorts. Amethyst tested the energy level in the crystal again and smiled. "Now you feel weak all over," she said, although she knew the boy would never hear her, or anything else, ever again.  
  
*****   
  
Amethyst had taken the non-essential energy from a college study group - they had books with them, so they were useful - and had taken the full life-force energy from an elderly couple feeding pigeons from a park bench. Ducking behind some bushes again, she connected to her crystal. The crystal's glow and the taste of the energy seduced her, and she was unsure how much time had passed before she broke the crystal's hypnotic spell and remembered what she had to do next. "I must now summon the dragon and destroy the Sailor Senshi," she told herself as she broke her connection with the crystal.   
  
Leaning against an old tree on the edge of the soccer field, she settled her mythology book on her lap, opening it to the picture of the dragon. A sketch of a fierce dragon glared back at her. Its scales were a black-edged crimson, and Amethyst knew the two colors would fight for dominance as the creature moved. Its eyes glowed a molten yellow, reflecting the fire in its belly. Its teeth were blackened with its own smoke. "It is time," she whispered.  
  
Amethyst closed her eyes then, focusing on her mental image of the beast. As she focused, she loosened her grip on the reality in which she physically existed. She no longer felt the rough bark behind her back, the weight of the book in her lap, the breeze rustling the loose tendrils of hair that had escaped her braid and tickled her face. Instead she felt the dry heat of another world warming her face, and she smelled the acridity of smoke.   
  
The world around her had been laid to waste by the east that now loomed in front of her. Leathery feet with curved talons crushed the burnt remains of what had once been some sort of vegetation. Its tail swept across the dusty ground as it turned towards Amethyst. It snorted, emitting smoke and sparks from its nostrils, and it narrowed its glowing yellow eyes at the shadowy figure of the girl. The dragon snarled, showing the blackened teeth, before hurling its fire in her direction. The fire rushed towards Amethyst, charring the ground beneath her feet, but leaving her untouched. The dragon tilted its head to one side, curious about the figure that resisted its fire and emitted no smell.   
  
"I'm not really here," Amethyst told the dragon. She raised her hand towards the dragon, and its glowing yellow eyes widened in surprise as it was engulfed in purple light from the crystal the child held. "I give you this energy that you might serve me," she chanted. "You will now accompany me to the plane on which I reside, and you will do my bidding." The dragon lumbered towards the girl, intending to devour her before she could cast her spell upon him, but his teeth passed right through her. Moments later, the purple energy had infused the beast, and its eye color shifted from glowing yellow to a purple that mimicked the color of Amethyst's own eyes. "Be loyal to me, dragon," she said in her childish voice. "Destroy the human world, and destroy the Sailor Senshi when they arrive." Amethyst smiled and teleported the dragon to the earth's dimension.  
  
When Amethyst opened her physical eyes, she still sat   
under the old tree in the park, the heavy book resting on her lap, but the picture of the dragon was missing from the book. A large swirl of purple fog engulfed the soccer field in front of her. When the fog cleared, the dragon emerged. It looked oddly out of place, its leathery feet now resting on the lush grass of the field, its scales, black-edged crimson, shimmering in the brilliant sunlight. The dragon's purple eyes took in scene before it. The mingling scents of   
mown grass, car exhaust, and the countless humans that resided in Tokyo were unfamiliar to it. This air seemed to burn its lungs, being richer in oxygen than it was used to. It snorted, and the sparks emitting from its nose burned brightly in this atmosphere.  
  
The children on the soccer teams had halted their game and raced for cover when the purple fog filled the field. The dragon shot his fire across the now-abandoned field, singing the grass. The sound of screams filled the air, and he followed the noise, approaching a clump of trees the children had just passed by. Another shot of fire, and the trees were reduced to tree-shaped ash. Amethyst wondered vaguely if the college study-group had awakened from her energy-drain in time to escape. They had been studying near those trees.   
  
"Mercury Bubbles Blast!" a girl's voice cried, and a bubbly fog suddenly hid the dragon.   
  
"The Sailor Senshi have arrived," Amethyst thought, trying to see through the fog from her position.   
  
Before the fog had completely lifted, another voice was heard. "Mars Fireball Charge!" another girl's voice called. The resulting fireball burned away the remnants of the fog, and the senshi were revealed. Both girls wore white body suits with bows and short skirts. The one with the short blue-black hair had a blue bow and skirt, and wore blue boots. The other girl, whose long black hair hung loose down her back, had a red bow, red skirt, and red high-heeled shoes that looked as inappropriate for battle as the shoes Jadeite's youma seemed to favor. There was no sign of Sailor Moon, the only senshi Amethyst had ever seen.  
  
"For disrupting the peace on a beautiful Sunday..." the girl in blue began.  
  
"For using your fire for evil and destruction..." the girl in red added.  
  
"You will not be forgiven!" the girls chorused.  
  
"In the name of Mercury..." the girl in blue yelled, striking a defensive position.  
  
"In the name of Mars..." the girl in red added.  
  
"We will punish you!" they chorused again.  
  
'How cheesy!' Amethyst thought. 'Why don't they just attack the dragon so it can burn them to a crisp?'  
  
As if hearing her thoughts, the Sailor Senshi attacked the dragon again. It seemed a hopeless endeavor. Sailor Mercury cast her fog again, hiding the girls from the dragon, who started shooting fire in all directions. Then Sailor Mars would send fireballs of her own at the dragon, but the dragon's scales were immune to the effect.   
  
The battle was slowly moving off of the soccer field and towards the benches and fountain in the center of the park. 'Eventually the dragon will hit them, and I'll win!' Amethyst thought, 'but I want to destroy all of the Sailor Senshi. Where is Sailor Moon?'  
  
"Where is Sailor Moon?" Sailor Mars cried to Sailor Mercury. "She should be here by now!"  
  
"I'm here, I'm here!" the blond senshi called, rushing towards the battle.  
  
"It took you long enough!" Sailor Mars hollered.  
  
"Not now, Mars!" Mercury scolded. She sent another blast of Mercury Bubbles, giving Sailor Moon cover as she reached the other girls. "This is no normal youma," she instructed to Sailor Moon. "My calculations tell me that this is a real dragon, not a Dark Kingdom creation. It doesn't belong in this dimension."  
  
"Forget that!" Sailor Mars cried out as another fireball was deflected from the dragon's scales. "How do we beat this thing?"  
  
"Sailor Moon, fire isn't working against this, uh, creature. Try your tiara," Mercury finished.  
  
"Um, okay," she answered. "Moon Tiara..." she began.  
  
"You idiot, look out!" Sailor Mars cried, rushing towards Sailor Moon. A fireball was hurdling towards the girl, but Tuxedo Kamen appeared out of nowhere, pushing her roughly to the ground and out of the way.  
  
"Oh, my! Thank you, Tuxedo Kamen!" Sailor Moon cried.  
  
"Be careful," Tuxedo Kamen warned, a tenderness in his voice that didn't escape Amethyst's notice. He helped her to her feet. "Do you want to try that again?"  
  
Sailor Moon looked at him blankly for a moment. "Oh, the tiara!" she replied after a moment. "Yeah, let me try that again."  
  
Tuxedo Kamen rushed away from Sailor Moon, running past the dragon as he threw his roses in its direction. One embedded itself into the dragon's eye, and it thrashed about in pain and anger.  
  
"Moon Tiara Action!" Sailor Moon cried, throwing her tiara at the distracted dragon. The tiara missed the dragon on the approach, but managed to clip off one of the fleshy spikes that lined the dragon's spine on the tiara's return. The dragon roared in fury again, lashing out its tail. The flying tail struck Sailor Moon, and she was sent flying into the fountain, striking her head hard on the edge before flying into the water.   
  
"Sailor Moon!" the other senshi cried out in horror as Tuxedo Kamen pulled her sodden body out of the fountain and flew off with the clearly unconscious heroine.  
  
Amethyst resisted the urge to cheer at the senshi's fate. The dragon was now wounded, but the remaining senshi had no way to fight against the dragon. 'Their doom is sure,' Amethyst thought with a grin.  
  
The senshi broke out of their stunned inactivity. Sailor Mercury grabbed Sailor Mars' arm as she rushed at the dragon. "No, we need a plan if we are going to fight this ourselves!" Mercury scolded. She then whispered something into Mars' ear.   
  
'What are they plotting?' Amethyst wondered. Mercury filled the battle scene with more Mercury Bubbles, and Mars shot off yet another fireball. This time, however, instead of being deflected by the dragon's scales, the dragon let out another yelp of pain.   
  
"Come and get me, you stupid lizard!" Sailor Mercury taunted. The dragon lumbered towards the sound, furious. Sailor Mars shot more fireballs at the dragon's retreating form as Sailor Mercury's taunting brought it closer and closer to her. "Mercury Bubbles Blast!" she cried between taunts. The dragon was heading towards her blindly.  
  
'What are they doing?' Amethyst wondered. Then she heard the splash. The senshi had taunted and herded the dragon into the lake. The dragon roared in helpless fury, and as the Mercury Bubbles faded away it became clear that the ferocious dragon was no match for the lake. Its heavy, scale-covered body was not meant for swimming, and its leathery feet and sharp claws could not grip the silt bottom of the lake. "It's going to drown!" Amethyst cried. She jumped to her feet, clutching her energy-storage crystal. She forced herself to close her eyes and envision the desolate world that was the dragon's origin. She then thrust the stone in front of her, her eyes still closed, forcing the crystal's power into the dragon and willing its teleportation back to the world she was envisioning.   
  
"Where did it go?" Amethyst heard one of the senshi cry out before the world went black.  
  
*****   
  
Amethyst woke up an indeterminable time later. The light was dimming, the sky darkening as evening approached. "Damn!" she swore. "I channeled too much energy into the dragon's teleportation." She forced herself to ignore the beginnings of a pounding headache and stood on shaky legs. "Is this what it feels like when I drain others with my crystal?" she wondered. She had to lean against the tree   
behind her. "I'll never be able to teleport back to the Dark Kingdom like this. I need to drain more energy first."   
  
Her next target came in the form of a little boy. He was trying to hide the fact that he was crying, but his sniffles and the hand he rubbed across his eyes gave him away. "What's the matter with you?" Amethyst asked him.  
  
The boy looked up at her with startled eyes. He looked to be about Amethyst's apparent age. "It's my randparents," he said, sniffing loudly. "They were supposed to meet me here, but I can't find them. I heard there was a monster attack, and I'm worried they got hurt."  
  
Amethyst looked at the boy more closely, and noticed a slight resemblance between the boy and the elderly couple she had drained before summoning the dragon. "I think I know where they are," she said, leading the boy to the bench they had been seated on. The elderly couple was still there, slumped limply against each other. They must have been dead for hours.  
  
"What happened to them?" the boy blurted out, rushing towards them and trying to shake them awake.  
  
"This," Amethyst answered as she drained the child as she had his Grandparents.  
  
*****   
  
Amethyst returned to the place she still referred to as Jadeite's quarters. The boy's energy had been sufficient to power her teleportation back into the Dark Kingdom. She was still tired from the great amount of energy it had taken her to use the crystal for the repeated energy collections and the bit of her own energy she had used to teleport the dragon back to its own dimension. After only a moment's hesitation, she crawled up into Jadeite's own bed, comforted by the pillows that had held his head, the blankets that had embraced his body. The faint remainder of his scent hung round her. "I'm not sure if Sailor Moon is still alive or not, and I failed to destroy the other two senshi and Tuxedo Kamen, but I will try again," she muttered to him as she quickly fell into a deep sleep. "You will be avenged."  
  
*****   
  
Author's Notes:   
  
This story isn't too dark for you, is it? What did you expect from a Dark Kingdom child? Please email me with any questions or comments or encouragement. Please?   
  
Oh, one more thing. I have finally found a way to weave an older fanfic I started about two years ago into "Crystal Tears." I will start posting this modified story, "A Love of... Science?" as soon as possible. It will run parallel to "Crystal Tears," showing the senshi viewpoint of this dragon attack, for instance, and it is much more light-hearted. 


	8. Chapter 7: General Suspicion

Crystal Tears Chapter 7: General Suspicion  
by Aisuru  
aisuru_chan@yahoo.com  
  
*****   
  
Queen Beryl's generals were seated at a highly polished table in an extravagantly furnished conference room somewhere in the bowels ofthe Dark Kingdom. One of the chairs was empty, but none of the generals thought about that very much. The removal of Jadeite from their numbers had left each of them responsible for more Dark Kingdom  
citizens, but other than the increased workload there were no personal regrets concerning Jadeite's fate.  
  
"Anything to report?" Kunzite said, beginning the meeting. There had not been any incidents as a result of Jadeite's eternal isolation. Even if his citizens had been especially loyal to him, which they weren't because of his over-involvement with a purple-eyed child, a new fear of Queen Beryl sufficed to stifle the complaints of the most loyal. Kunzite suspected that all was quiet in the Dark Kingdom, and their only concerns would involve aiding Nephrite in planning his upcoming energy-gathering missions.  
  
Nephrite cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable. "I believe that there has been unauthorized creature summoning in Tokyo," he stated.   
  
Kunzite was shocked. This was no minor infraction of Dark Kingdom policy. Creature summoning was an energy-intensive process, and if Dark Kingdom citizens thought they could just teleport to inhabited earth and cause disruptions, then the Dark Kingdom energy reserves would suffer. "And you didn't think this was important enough to mention before?" Kunzite said angrily.   
  
"Well, sir, I only felt the trans-dimensional rift open while meditating earlier today. I teleported to the location of the rift to investigate, and found myself in a park in the center of Tokyo. There was extensive fire damage to the park, and the humans were gossiping about a dragon attack."   
  
"A dragon?" Zoicite asked. "I thought those were mythological!"   
  
"They are, in this dimension," Nephrite answered, annoyed at Zoicite, "Like I said, it must have been summoned from another dimension." He returned his attention to General Kunzite, his commander. "Whatever caused the damage was gone before I arrived. What I felt must have been the creature being returned to its own plane of existence."   
  
"Did you notice any residual Dark Kingdom energy in the park?" Kunzite asked. Residual Dark Kingdom energy might help lead them to the culprit.  
  
"It was hard to tell, sir," Nephrite answered. "I think the Sailor Senshi were involved in stopping the beast. The aura of their powers remained in the air." Nephrite paused before adding, "That is why I didn't call for an emergency meeting. I could neither confirm nor deny that the summoning came from within the Dark Kingdom."   
  
"That is even more reason that I should have been alerted!" Kunzite bellowed. "Did it not occur to you that the possibility of someone outside of the Dark Kingdom having these powers is more important than one of our own using powers without authorization?"   
  
Nephrite shook his head ever-so-slightly in the negative, keeping his eyes on the tabletop.   
  
Kunzite sighed. "We need to open the channels of communication between us," he said after a moment. "Jadeite's failures can in part be attributed to the secrecy he used with his energy gathering missions. We should learn from his mistakes."   
  
Nephrite jumped at the chance to draw attention away from himself and towards Jadeite. "Maybe we should analyze what we do know of Jadeite's mission," he suggested. "I really don't know much about the strategies he used or what he was up against when it came to the Sailor Senshi. Anything we can uncover would be useful to know as I plan my upcoming missions."   
  
"I don't know anything about Jadeite's mission," Zoicite muttered with a scowl. "It was like he was hiding something from me."   
  
"Well, what do we know?" Kunzite asked.   
  
Nephrite thought for a moment. "I know he always used those stupid youma," he said. "He must have used illusion spells on them, because the few that I saw looked remarkably like humans."   
  
Then Zoicite remembered something he had overheard Jadeite say: "I think he mostly targeted women and adolescents. Something about them having a lot of emotional energies that were easy to collect."   
  
"That makes sense," Nephrite interrupted. "I plan to take energy from one human at a time as they reach their energy peaks. From my preliminary research, adolescents are full of the energies of rebellion, competition, and romantic love."   
  
"Didn't he collect energy from large gatherings?" Zoicite asked rhetorically. Then his eyes grew wide. "How did he manage to collect the energy from so many humans at once? The very best youma can only gather the energy from a few humans at a time, but he always collected a significant amount of energy before the Sailor Senshi interrupted his plans!"   
  
While Zoicite pondered this, Kunzite changed the direction of the conversation. "The Sailor Senshi -- that is something Jadeite discussed with me. They appear to be adolescents themselves, which angered Jadeite endlessly. He said that two of them called upon the powers of the planets Mars and Mercury for their attacks, which are mostly elemental in nature. One has limited mastery of fire, the other of water -- she creates some sort of blinding fog. The third senshi, the one that appeared first, appears to fight with discs of energy. Oh, there is also a man that they call Tuxedo Kamen. He throws roses that cause temporary disruptions in the flow of the battle. Jadeite thought the roses had a brief stunning effect on the youma."   
  
Nephrite laughed. "Do you mean to tell me that these dreaded Sailor Senshi, the ones that caused so much trouble for Jadeite, are composed of three girls and a man that throws flowers? I'm relieved. I thought they were going to pose some sort of threat, but I think I will be able to handle them."   
  
Kunzite once again found himself frustrated by ignorant cockiness in the generals under his command. "It is foolish to underestimate an opponent," he said with a glare at the other generals. That is when he realized that Zoicite's thoughts seemed to be elsewhere.   
  
"Zoicite!" Kunzite yelled. Zoicite blinked, coming out of his thoughts. "What is so important that you zoned out during a strategic meeting?" he asked angrily.   
  
Zoicite blinked again. "Um, sorry," he said, "but I still can't figure out how Jadeite was able to collect energy from so many people at once. Granted, he didn't keep most of the energy he collected due to Sailor Senshi interference, but, from what Queen Beryl says, the energy he would initially collect were vast. That is why she was so frustrated when he failed to destroy the senshi."   
  
"He probably had a talisman or something to focus the energy of those gathered," Nephrite guessed.   
  
Zoicite snorted. "No talisman has that sort of power, unless..." he stopped speaking suddenly, his face turning an unflattering pink in his sudden anger.   
  
"Unless what, Zoicite?" Kunzite asked.   
  
"Unless he was using highly advanced gems!" Zoicite sputtered angrily, knocking his chair over as he stood up. "Jadeite didn't have the ability to make such gems. One of my apprentices must have been aiding him behind my back! I'll kill them all!"   
  
"Sit down!" Kunzite ordered. Zoicite just barely remembered to right his chair before obeying. "Before you kill off all of your apprentices, which, by the way, are really the property of the Dark Kingdom and should not be killed off on a whim, let us think about this rationally." Kunzite was suddenly remembering the Dark Kingdom child that Jadeite had been so protective of, the child whose only talent was gemology. He also remembered that Jadeite's first energy collection mission had occurred in a jewelry store, where he had drained the energy of customers -- customers that were probably buying gems! There must have been a reason that Jadeite had kept Amethyst so hidden and the details of his missions so secretive. "Give me time to test out a theory I have," he told the other generals. "If my theory is correct, Jadeite had no need to involve himself with Zoicite's apprentices."  
  
*****   
  
It was hours after Amethyst's summoning of the dragon, but it seemed like only moments had passed when her healing sleep was interrupted by a cold, cruel laughter. Immediately awake, she bolted out of the bed, looking at General Kunzite, who was standing on the other end of the bed. "Did you often frequent Jadeite's bed?" the general asked, his voice heavy with implication, his ice blue eyes darkening a shade.  
  
Amethyst wasn't sure what he was referring to, but she felt uneasy under his gaze. "No, sir," she replied when she had regained some of her composure. She ran a hand over her dress, smoothing out a wrinkle, avoiding his eyes. "I always slept in the adjoining room," she added, indicating to what General Kunzite knew was only a closet. "I am not so young a child that I cannot sleep alone."  
  
General Kunzite laughed again at her interpretation of his comment. He then informed Amethyst that the Dark Kingdom citizens under General Jadeite's leadership had been divided among the remaining three generals, and that she was being reassigned to him. "Jadeite was very fond of you, very protective," he told her, eyeing her as one would a new possession. "I am interested in knowing why."  
  
Amethyst kept her eyes lowered and angry, refusing to meet his gaze, as if a glance in her eyes would tell him all of her secrets.   
  
"He said children should be hidden from adult citizens," she had answered in a small voice, feigning innocence as to the nature of his question, which she knew was an interest in her powers and not Dark Kingdom sociology.  
  
"Of course," Kunzite said with concealed sarcasm. "I had forgotten. There aren't very many children in the Dark Kingdom."  
  
"Not many?" Amethyst asked, eyes wide. "I thought I was the only one!"  
  
"You are, my dear," he answered. "Why is that, I wonder?" Amethyst managed to hide any reaction to his reminder that she had killed all of the other children. It wasn't something she liked to think about. All of their memories swirled in her mind; their ambitions, their rivalries, their concerns -- she knew them all.  
  
Then Kunzite spoke again: "Tomorrow you will begin training under my direction."  
  
"Training?" Amethyst asked. "What will I be trained in?" She was worried that she would be unable to conceal from General Kunzite how advanced several of her abilities had become.  
  
"You will be trained in energy projection. It is a special talent of mine, but I train all citizens under my command in at least the basics of energy projection, whether they have a talent for it or not. The ability to control energy aids in the development of many other abilities," he answered her. Then he added, "Jadeite once informed me that you were unable to teleport safely on your own. I will come by tomorrow to fetch you." Then he gave her a twisted sort of smile; "We can't have you associating with Dark Kingdom citizens, now, can we?"  
  
*****   
  
Author's notes:   
  
I hope all of my readers enjoyed that heavy dose of the Dark Kingdom. I know this chapter isn't as long as some of my others have been, but I have been busy outlining the story to its end! I think that I will be on a one-chapter-a-week schedule for the remainder of "Crystal Tears" so I can get some deadline-fast-approaching work done for school. PLEASE email me at aisuru_chan@yahoo.com with questions, comments, encouragement, or flames -- well, maybe not flames, but constructive criticism is always welcomed... I said CONSTRUCTIVE! 


	9. Chapter 8: A Time for Revenge

Crystal Tears Chapter 8: A Time for Revenge by Aisuru aisuru_chan@yahoo.com  
  
*****  
  
Amethyst sat on the couch in General Jadeite's old quarters. She was deep in thought, mulling over the conversation she had had with General Kunzite. 'So I am to be trained in energy projection beginning tomorrow,' she thought. She remembered a child she had visited during the long sleep, a child that had read a text on energy manipulation, knowledge that was now hers to access. Amethyst had applied this knowledge when she gave Dark Energy to the dragon. She could envision how the energy would be gathered from either her surroundings or a storage crystal, focused through mental discipline (or, more effectively, through the use of another gem), and projected towards a target.  
  
There were many variations on the energy focusing, depending on the energy's purpose. While usually focused for weapon applications, either as heat or as raw energy, it could also be focused as pressure (for shields or the movement of objects) or softened to supply energy to another citizen or youma. Amethyst had softened energy to strengthen youma, but she had never used energy as a weapon or shield before. Still sitting on Jadeite's couch, Amethyst siphoned a little energy from her ever-present purple energy storage gem, trying to control the energy in its raw form without the use of a gem. She mimicked a form she had seen Jadeite use, levitating the energy in a ball that hovered above her outstretched palm. This required a lot of concentration as energy manipulation was not a natural talent of hers, and she realized that without the other child's stolen book- knowledge even this relatively simple task would be impossible for her.  
  
"General Kunzite said that the '...ability to control energy aids in the development of many other abilities,'" Amethyst remembered. An old vase sat on a table across the room, and Amethyst attempted to use this energy to physically levitate the vase. Focused by only the power of her mind, the ball of energy flew across the room. It missed the vase; instead the physical force she had formed slammed into one of the legs supporting the table, reducing it to splinters. Her eyes widened in horror as the fragile vase, instead of levitating gently, shattered on impact with the plush carpeting. She approached the fragments hesitantly, as horrified that she destroyed one of Jadeite's ancient treasures as she was that she had so little control of her powers. Unsure what to do, she left the splintered table and vase fragments where they lay.  
  
Sitting on the couch again, she contented herself with hovering a second ball of energy, again taken from the purple energy-storage gem, above her outstretched palm. "Maybe this weakness in my skills is for the best," she muttered. "I can't let the other generals know how advanced my abilities have become. I'll just let General Kunzite think that I can't teleport on my own." She had to smile when she recalled what the generals must think of her abilities. The original purple energy storage crystal that the generals had seen was extremely simple.  
  
Another thought occurred to Amethyst; if she was going to be under close supervision by General Kunzite, her freedom would be severely limited, meaning no more trips to earth. The more she thought about her failed attempt at wrecking havoc on earth -- due entirely to the same horrible Sailor Senshi that had led to Jadeite's downfall -- the more her anger burned against them. It was time to destroy the Sailor Senshi. It was time for revenge.  
  
Amethyst picked up her precious book and flipped through the pages, looking for a worthy adversary for the Sailor Senshi. The creature would need to be intelligent and easy to control. She found a picture of a unicorn. In the picture, the creature looked fierce, and according to the text unicorns were chaotic-good in nature, had the power to purify poisons and renew the spark of like, and could be easily tamed by innocent girls. Amethyst was as amused at the idea that she, full of Dark Energy, would be the one to tame the unicorn as she was at the thought of a being of goodness being the tool to destroy those that claimed they fought for love and justice!  
  
Her book in her arms and her modified energy-storage crystal held tightly in her fist, she teleported back to earth once again. The park was in ruins from the dragon's attacks, but she swiftly sucked the life-energy of the few people that did venture out onto the singed grass of the field or sat under the half-baked trees. She wondered that the Senshi did not appear as the people fell dead into the dirt, but they did not.  
  
Seating herself under one of the few trees that still had leaves enough for shade, Amethyst set to work at summoning the unicorn. The unicorn's world was one of beauty and health. Lush meadows full of rabbits and grazing deer bordered thick, protective forests of ancient trees. The babbling music of brooks and the rustling of leaves in the branches high overhead competed with the melodies of birds. The unicorn's balancing energy permeated this place, and Amethyst felt dizzy and sick. Taking a bit of her crystal's energy for herself, she wandered deeper into the forest, where the aura seemed strongest, and there she found the unicorn.  
  
It was a beautiful creature, emanating not the beauty of power and strength but a but a fluid grace and tranquility not found in the Dark Kingdom. Its first appearance was that of a white horse, but closer examination showed the longer tufts of hair around the feet and the tail of an oxen. Its most distinctive characteristic, though, was the horn, which radiated its golden light. Only when it noticed Amethyst's intrusion into its paradise did Amethyst notice the fierceness in its eyes. The fierceness, though, was born of determination to protect, and not the hatred or ambition Amethyst was used to seeing. It unsettled her.  
  
Wasting no more time, Amethyst held her crystal in front of her and directed a flow of Dark Energy towards the unicorn. The unicorn reared up on its back legs and stamped around as if uncertain of which course of action to take -- the girl should be healed of the energy poisoning her, but the unicorn's world must also be protected from evil influence. The unicorn fought as Amethyst flooded its veins with the Dark Energy, so Amethyst teleported it swiftly to the park, where the aura of peace in the unicorn's world would not be present to offer its protection.  
  
The Dark Energy was weakening the unicorn, but its eyes refused to flash from their soft silver to the purple that would indicate it was sufficiently tamed. "This will be harder than I thought," Amethyst muttered as she set to work entrapping the unicorn in an energy field -- easy to do with the crystal's guidance -- and began creating a youma that could wield the unicorn's power more to her purposes. The youma she created was a dark mirror image of the unicorn, minus only the horn. It shook its ink-black mane with a toss of its head and stamped its pewter- gray hooves in angry restlessness. Its purple eyes flashed allegiance to Amethyst and the world of darkness she served.  
  
It was no easy task to remove the horn from the true unicorn, infuse it with enough Dark Energy to twist the effect of its power, and place it on the crown of the youma unicorn, but Amethyst worked quickly, knowing that her absence from the Dark Kingdom could be noticed at any moment and wanting to destroy the Sailor Senshi before that could happen. The final result was well worth the effort, Amethyst realized, as the weakened and powerless true unicorn wandered away and the youma unicorn used the horn's power to poison the very earth under the singed grass and dying trees.  
  
The Sailor Senshi did arrive, but not until after the dark unicorn had used its powers to reanimate the lifeless bodies of the people Amethyst had drained to summon the unicorn in the first place -- a side effect that Amethyst had not expected but that delighted her to no end.  
  
Sailor Mercury, the first senshi to arrive, scanned the unicorn with her visor to determine the nature of the creature. "It has a dual nature," she called to Sailor Mars as she arrived, "both youma and twisted true unicorn. Please heal these people as I figure out how to approach this problem."  
  
"Aku ryo tai san!" Mars shouted, throwing the little slips of papers at the zombies with preternatural accuracy. They fell down, limp and dead, as the papers struck them.  
  
"They're dead!" Mercury exclaimed in surprise as she turned from the youma to scan a Tokyo citizen.  
  
"What? It's not supposed to kill them, Mercury!" Mars exclaimed, horrified at the very possibility.  
  
"They were probably dead to begin with," Mercury soothed. "They might have been drained before we got here."  
  
"Just like the people found after the dragon attack," Mars mused sadly, before her eyes flashed in anger. "The Dark Kingdom didn't use to kill people when they drained them. Are we dealing with a new enemy? We haven't seen Jadeite in days!"  
  
Amethyst stifled a little growl as she heard their mention of Jadeite. The little creeps didn't even know what their interference in Jadeite's work had caused, and that fact made it all the more horrible. She sent a bolt of dark energy to the unicorn, despite her weariness, encouraging it on in its work and its true purpose: the destruction of the senshi.  
  
The true unicorn had been attracted to purity and innocence, so the first senshi to attract the unicorn's attention was Sailor Moon, who had arrived silently and was leaning heavily on a tree and struggling to keep her warrior face on. Her eyes widened as the unicorn thundered towards her, purple eyes fixed hatefully on her, its dark head bowed and its horn ready to pierce her through. She let out a strangled cry; then Tuxedo Kamen, who must have been hiding very nearby, swept her aside.  
  
No sooner had he set her back on her feet than the dark unicorn charged towards her again. "Why is it after me?" Sailor Moon cried from her new position in Tuxedo Kamen's arms high in a dragon-burned tree.  
  
"It must be attracted to her purity," Sailor Mercury said, still taking readings on the dark unicorn.  
  
"Pure? Her?" Sailor Mars scoffed. "As in pure tardiness? Pure clumsiness? Purely annoying?"  
  
"Oh, Mars, you are so mean!" Sailor Moon whined.  
  
With Sailor Mars out of reach, the dark unicorn turned its attention to Sailor Mercury. Tuxedo Kamen threw a rose to halt its charge towards the girl, and Sailor Mercury quickly summoned her Mercury Bubbles to hide herself from view.  
  
"What am I, chopped liver?" Sailor Mars exclaimed in anger, her voice coming from the heart of the Mercury Bubbles mist. The fog glowed red as she started to summon her fireball attack, but Mercury's voice stopped her.  
  
"No, Sailor Mars, don't!" she cried. "The body may be youma, but the horn was stolen from a real unicorn! We can't risk damaging it."  
  
"Then what are we supposed to do? Just let it destroy Tokyo? Oh, look, it is poisoning the fountain!" Sure enough, as the fog started to fade, Amethyst could see that the water in the fountain was now a muddy red, and some sort of oily substance floated on its surface.  
  
"Sailor Moon," Mercury called out after making more of the fog. "Can you use your tiara to remove the unicorn's horn without damaging it?"  
  
"I'll sure try," Sailor Moon answered, her voice weak from within the fog. "Moon Tiara Action!"  
  
Sailor Moon's aim was true, and the golden horn fell to the ground as the youma screamed the cry of the dusted. The grass underneath the horn sprang up fresh and green, making a circle of lawn roughly a meter in diameter.  
  
Unwilling to face both a unicorn and the senshi alone, Amethyst teleported back to Jadeite's apartments in the Dark Kingdom.  
  
*****  
  
Unnoticed by either Amethyst or the Sailor Senshi, Nephrite watched the scene. He had been meditating when he had sensed the opening of a portal between planes of existence, and had followed the distorted energies back to the park. He had watched the senshi fight the dark unicorn, whose true nature he recognized immediately, and he had felt a Dark Kingdom presence teleport away at the youma's destruction, but had been unprepared to follow, having not seen who it was that teleported away.  
  
He watched in silence as Tuxedo Kamen carried Sailor Moon back to the ground, letting her lean heavily against him. It did not escape Nephrite's notice that Sailor Mercury was watching Tuxedo Kamen with intense curiosity, and Sailor Mars watching the same young man with intense suspicion. Tuxedo Kamen was cradling the girl tenderly against his chest as if he meant to never let her go, but when the horn-less white unicorn approached the group he whispered something into her ear and she smiled softly.  
  
Sailor Moon removed her elbow-length white gloves before pushing herself away from Tuxedo Kamen. She approached the severed unicorn horn on shaky legs. Nephrite cringed as she picked up the golden horn with her bare hands, holding it gently -- touching such a thing would burn the dark energy right out of him, and he cringed at the very thought. It seemed to have no deleterious effect on Sailor Moon as she waited for the true unicorn to approach.  
  
It tossed its white mane and looked at the girl with compassion and tenderness in its silver eyes. It even went so far as to nuzzle against her cheek, causing the girl to laugh, its pure sound grating on Nephrite's nerves. When Sailor Moon reached to reattach the horn to the beast's forehead, Nephrite put up shields to protect himself from the blast of pure energy that was released. The light enfolded Sailor Moon, seeming to strengthen her. The light also touched Tuxedo Kamen and each of the senshi, and they gasped.  
  
The senshi seemed frozen in place as the unicorn set about giving new life to the grass and trees, purifying the soil that the dark unicorn had poisoned, and even touching the fountain so that its water was crystalline clean once again. Only when the unicorn turned towards Nephrite, its eyes gleaming, did he teleport away. 


	10. Chapter 9: A Time To Kill

Crystal Tears Chapter 9: A Time To Kill by Aisuru aisuru_chan@yahoo.com  
  
*****  
  
When Kunzite arrived at Jadeite's apartments to escort Amethyst to her first energy projection lesson, he found her asleep. Rather than waking her up, he wandered around Jadeite's apartments, intellectually interested in how Amethyst was faring on her own. The apartment still looked much like it had when Jadeite had been there, but with a few exceptions. The first thing Kunzite noticed was a large mythology book that was sitting on Jadeite's coffee table. It was opened to a picture of a unicorn. "I guess all little girls like unicorns," he muttered, and then wondered how he had known that earth girls like unicorns. The thought was quickly lost, Queen Beryl's mind control spell working as it should.  
  
The second change to Jadeite's quarters was the broken state of a side table. One of the legs had been demolished by an energy projection of some sort, and the vase that had been on the table was missing. Kunzite concluded that Jadeite had broken the table himself in some fit of rage before his imprisonment, as the table had obviously been damaged by an energy projection, and Amethyst had not yet been trained in energy projection.  
  
The girl slept on, so Kunzite took it upon himself to wake her. He called her name several times before she opened her eyes, blinking them to focus her bleary vision. "Why are you so tired? Have you been practicing your levitation or something?" he asked her.  
  
Amethyst looked at him for a moment, not understanding the question, before remembering that she should be covering up the fact that she spent too much energy in the unicorn summoning and alteration, only to fail in her plan to destroy the Sailor Senshi. "Um, yeah, I was practicing levitation. I'm getting pretty good at it," she said in her best innocent little girl voice. 'I'm really going to have to work to hide my abilities today,' she remembered. 'I'm not supposed to be able to levitate much at all. I wonder what Kunzite would say if he knew what I could really do!' These thought brought her a moment of joy until she remembered what would really happen if the generals found out about her abilities -- Jadeite had warned her that they would kill her out of jealousy without a second thought. That sobered her up quickly.  
  
"Well, lets get going," Kunzite said abruptly, shattering Amethyst's train of thought.  
  
"Yes, sir," she said, getting out of bed and following him out of Jadeite's quarters.  
  
*****  
  
'I am no longer safe,' Amethyst thought, noting the glints of suspicion in the eyes of the Dark Kingdom citizens they passed. She struggled to keep up with General Kunzite's long, impatient stride.  
  
Now there was only the sound of her tiny feet scurrying to keep up with the general in front of her, the thud of his heavy boots as he walked ahead of her, and the weighty silence of the Dark Kingdom citizens that stared at her with suspicion and an anger born in their fear of her.  
  
Lost in her thoughts, Amethyst narrowly missed stumbling into General Kunzite when he suddenly stopped. "You must have something on your mind," he commented, his hands resting on her shoulders to steady her. They had walked past heavily armed guards, and the uneven black stone that covered most surfaces in the Dark Kingdom had yielded to gray and white marble as they entered a compound whose tasteful architecture and extravagant furnishing spoke of highly reverenced inhabitants.  
  
"I have taken you to the general's own training hall," Kunzite told her when he noticed her surprise at her environment. "I noticed the looks you were getting from the other citizens. Jadeite was right in keeping you apart from the other citizens."  
  
*****  
  
Kunzite watched Amethyst closely as she aimed an energy projection at the target. The girl was clearly exhausted, which might explain why her aim was off, but it was obvious to Kunzite that she was trying to downplay her abilities. She did not have very good control of her energy beams, and the beams lacked power, which was what he had expected for a first lesson when energy projection was not a talent. What Kunzite noticed, however, was how finely focused and delicately created the energy was. Such focus was probably the result of a highly developed mind and experience with energy control, neither of which he expected Amethyst to have. In fact, the energy projections looked similar to those Zoicite made without the aid of a crystal.  
  
"I've never seen anything like it, sir," the instructor said to Kunzite as another weak but beautifully crafter energy projection missed the target altogether. "Most beginning students throw all of their energy into their projections but have absolutely no focus. She has incredible focus, but no power!"  
  
Kunzite only nodded. While she was missing the target, maybe on purpose to hide abilities, it appeared that so much of her energy was going into the intricate production of the energy projection that there was no energy left for an intense impact. 'It probably wouldn't have occurred to the child to make an unfocused energy projection to hide her skills,' Kunzite thought in amusement.  
  
"Amethyst," Kunzite called.  
  
The girl turned to look at him and the instructor, her white-purple hair swirling around her tiny frame like a cloak. "Sir?" she asked in a weary voice.  
  
"Try using a zeta type 4 crystal to focus the projection. That will free up energy for the impact," Kunzite instructed.  
  
Amethyst nodded and turned towards the target. In one fluid motion and without much thought, an intricately designed crystal appeared, and only moments later a highly focused energy projection blasted through the center if the target, which burst into flames. The wall behind the target had an impact crater almost a foot in diameter, impressive for one whose primary talent was not energy projections.  
  
"There is your power," Kunzite drawled to the wide-eyed instructor.  
  
Amethyst felt a thrill of exhilaration as she watched the energy projection demolish the target. Then she froze, realizing that she had quickly produced an expert-grade crystal in front of one of the generals. "Oh no," she whispered, and teleported away. So great was her agitation that it escaped her notice that she had teleported in front of General Kunzite, who had not known she could teleport at all.  
  
Kunzite, however, did notice. "Speak of this to no one," he warned the instructor before walking off to call an emergency meeting with the other generals.  
  
*****  
  
Kunzite sat at the head of the conference table, waiting impatiently for Nephrite's appearance. He stoically avoided Zoicite's gaze, which pleaded that he be told the important information before Nephrite's arrival. Sometimes Kunzite thought there was something a little unusual about the way Zoicite acted around him. 'Maybe I can use that to my advantage someday,' he wondered as he waited.  
  
Finally Nephrite arrived. "What took you so long?" Kunzite asked icily. "I call an emergency meeting -- note the use of the word emergency -- and you have more important things to do?"  
  
"I apologize, sir," Nephrite said, his eyes carefully lowered below Kunzite's glare, "but I have important news to relate. There has been another summoning."  
  
"Another summoning? Why am I just now hearing about this?" Kunzite asked angrily.  
  
Nephrite kept his eyes carefully lowered. He knew that if he met Kunzite's gaze, his nonchalant attitude would fly out the window. "I was meditating to analyze the fighting styles of the Sailor Senshi while the information was fresh in my mind, sir," he replied. "The Sailor Senshi argue amongst themselves like children, but each has special abilities that, when combined, make them worthy opponents. The one called Mercury casts a blinding white fog as her only power, but her real strength lies in her intelligence. She is the strategist of the group. The one called Mars is a pyrokinetic, but she also wields the weapons of a priestess. The one called Moon is childish and clumsy, but her attack, which can be best described as her tiara infused with her own power and thrown as a discus, is effective, and it is she that radiates the sickening purity Jadeite spoke of. Tuxedo Kamen, the man that throws flowers, seems separated from the group somehow, but there is some connection between him and Sailor Moon, as she is the only one he really protects." Nephrite risked a glance at his supervisor. Kunzite looked interested -- a good sign.  
  
"What was summoned this time?" Kunzite asked.  
  
"A unicorn, sir."  
  
"A unicorn?" Zoicite interrupted with a laugh. "Aren't they supposed to be all pure and sweet and stuff? Why would the Sailor Senshi be fighting a unicorn?"  
  
Nephrite glared at Zoicite for interrupting him. "The Sailor Senshi were fighting the unicorn because its summoner, who was not identified, summoned the unicorn in its original form and then infused it with enough Dark Energy to weaken it and take the unicorn's horn. The summoner then created a youma that almost perfectly mimicked the unicorn without the use of any illusion spells, except for the coloration, which I believe was artistic license. This new unicorn used its horn to sicken the plants it touched and even the minds of humans it came in contact with. Mars was able to heal these people."  
  
Kunzite was quiet for a moment, lost in thought, before he spoke. "So someone teleported to earth from the Dark Kingdom, summoned a unicorn, used Dark Energy to weaken it, created a youma clone with minimal illusionary spells, and fused this youma with the power of the horn?"  
  
Nephrite nodded.  
  
"Do we know anyone capable of doing all of these things?" Kunzite asked. "Could it be a group of Dark Kingdom citizens working together? But for what purpose?"  
  
Nephrite shook his head. "I do not know anyone capable of all these tasks. And I don't think it is a group -- I would have been able to find a group of Dark Kingdom citizens by their combined energy signatures."  
  
Kunzite paused again before asking, "Is there anything else you can tell me about this situation?"  
  
Nephrite thought for a moment. "Well, the Sailor Senshi defeated the unicorn when Moon clipped off its horn with her tiara. She was supported by Tuxedo Kamen and seemed weakened. Then she seemed to go into a funny sort of trance as if she was controlled by the original unicorn, and she approached it, picked up the horn with her bare hands, and put it back on the unicorn's forehead. The unicorn cleaned up the area before teleporting itself back to its own dimension."  
  
"What about the dark unicorn?"  
  
"Well," Nephrite thought, "it disintegrated, as youma do, when struck by Sailor Moon's tiara. The youma was black, and its eyes glowed purple."  
  
"Wait, its eyes glowed purple?" Kunzite asked.  
  
"Um, yeah, they did. It's power had a purple signature as well," Nephrite added.  
  
Kunzite sat back in his seat, his face showing astonishment for the faintest second before a smug smile took its place. "Our summoner is from the Dark Kingdom, has an unusually broad scope of abilities in an unusual combination, summons creatures from human mythology, and has a purple energy signature. I think I know who our summoner is."  
  
"You do?" Nephrite asked in surprise.  
  
"Who?" Zoicite demanded.  
  
"If you recall, I called this meeting before I even knew about the unicorn summoning. I called this meeting because I have determined that Amethyst, the child so protected by Jadeite, has advanced gemology skills."  
  
Zoicite was immediately distracted from wondering who the summoner was. "How advanced?" she asked, angry and suspicious that someone had trained the girl without his consent.  
  
"Well," Kunzite said, anticipating Zoicite's outrage with not a little pleasure. "She used a zeta type 4 crystal to focus an energy projection during her first day of training."  
  
Zoicite was shaking with anger. It had been years before he had mastered the zeta type 4 crystal, only a few of his Dark Kingdom citizens could create that type of crystal, and they were kept under lock and key. "Where did she get a zeta type 4 crystal?"  
  
Kunzite was really enjoying this. "That's the truly interesting thing, Zoicite," he said, drawing out the conversation so he could savor every moment of it. "She created it in front of me in a matter of seconds."  
  
Zoicite's howl of fury can be heard echoing throughout the Dark Kingdom. Elsewhere, youma looked around, confused at the sound, but they eventually realized that they were usually confused so this was nothing special, and they continued doing whatever it is youma do in the Dark Kingdom.  
  
"So she made all of those crystals Jadeite was using," Nephrite stated after the echoes from Zoicite's scream died down.  
  
Kunzite nodded. "But I think we have more important things to worry about where Amethyst is concerned," Kunzite continued, his mood now sober. "As far as I know, Amethyst has only two possessions. The first is the purple energy storage crystal she created before the long sleep, the one that left the purple markings on her forehead and right hand. Her other possession is a book that Jadeite gave her, a book on earth mythology. When I went to get her for her energy projection lesson, she was sound asleep, obviously exhausted, so I took a few minutes to wander around Jadeite's quarters. The book was opened to a picture of unicorn." Kunzite paused to let this information sink in before he dropped the bombshell: "I think she has been summoning the creatures that have been appearing in Tokyo."  
  
"What?" Nephrite asked, his turn to be stunned. "That can't be possible. I mean, I know she visited alternative planes during the long sleep, during which she was awake and all, but how could she be powerful enough to summon? And that unicorn was infused with so much power! Where did she learn to control so much energy?"  
  
"Probably the same way she learned gemology. And energy projection. And the summoning of creatures from alternative dimensions. And youma creation. And any other abilities she and Jadeite hid from us so successfully."  
  
"And where is that?" Zoicite snapped.  
  
Kunzite's answer was simple: "Stolen memories."  
  
A long silence filled the room as each general wondered what other knowledge she had gleaned from the minds she had mined.  
  
"She will summon again, and soon," Kunzite said eventually. "I will follow her, but I want the rest of you to stay here in the Dark Kingdom." He held up a hand when it looked as if the other generals would argue. "We are only beginning to see what Jadeite recognized from the beginning: this girl is a valuable asset to the Dark Kingdom. I will follow her, I will observe her, and then, if my assumptions are correct, I will ask Queen Beryl for permission to expend the energy for a thorough reconditioning. She can be cleansed of her loyalty to Jadeite as she was cleansed of her loyalty to her family and friends on earth during the Silver Millennium. I forbid either of you to touch her out of jealousy. Indeed, I also fear that this child will be more powerful than me when trained properly, but our loyalties lie with Queen Beryl before they lie with ourselves. She is an important resource, and she will be used to the fullest extent." With these final words, Kunzite teleported out of the Dark Kingdom in search of the little purple-haired, purple-eyed girl that he though held the keys to Metallia's resurrection in her capable little hands.  
  
*****  
  
"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" Amethyst chided herself as she teleported back to Jadeite's quarters. She had created and then used a highly advanced crystal in front of a general! "The time for revenge is over. I don't think I'll be able to destroy the Sailor Scouts, but I'll bet I can gather enough energy to break Jadeite free from Queen Beryl's crystal. Jadeite will protect me, and neither of us will ever be alone again." With these words, Amethyst grabbed the mythology book and teleported to the library on earth.  
  
She closeted herself in one of the quiet reading rooms with the mythology book. She flipped through the pages of the text, glaring at the pictures of the dragon and the unicorn as their pages were turned. 'I don't have much time before the generals find me,' she thought. 'I don't have time to make youma, so I need to find something that can naturally drain a lot of energy very quickly from a lot of people. It also should do it quietly -- the last thing I need is to have those stupid Sailor Senshi interfere!' Amethyst paused when she came across a picture of beautiful, half-naked women that lived in trees. She read: "'While not considered evil, wood sprites are selfish creatures. If a wood sprite sees an attractive man, she will absorb his energy in an attempt to keep him with her. Wood sprites cannot exist very long apart from trees.'" Amethyst looked up from the book, a scheming glint in her purple eyes. "This might be it!" she exclaimed.  
  
Amethyst roamed throughout the library, completely draining the life force energy from every solitary person she met. She had no time to consider respecting people that respected books. She needed energy, and she needed it fast. She left the library before the first corpse was discovered. She held her purple energy storage crystal in her right hand, and the concentrated energy made the crystal pulse with a purple glow.  
  
Outside the library she encountered a beautiful, sunny day. There was sure to be a crowd of people at the park, which meant more potential victims but also a higher chance of attracting the Sailor Senshi's attention. The cheery atmosphere contrasted sharply with the apprehension she felt as she sat under a shade tree and began the summoning process. This summoning would take more energy than either the dragon or the unicorn, as she was summoning several wood sprites, each of which had to be infused with dark energy to magnify their selfishness so they would absorb more energy from more men more quickly. They then had to be given more energy to connect with trees inside the park. Amethyst did all of this with her eyes closed, the crystal held firmly in her hand, the book open on her lap to the picture of the sprites. To the casual observer, the child was resting her eyes, not summoning and molding a destructive force with incredible mental discipline.  
  
When the wood nymphs were in place, Amethyst opened her eyes. The world looked the same. The wood nymphs were hidden within the trees, and the crowds of happy people walked by them unknowingly until an especially attractive man walked by. With her Dark Kingdom eyes, Amethyst could see the tendrils of energy being lifted from the man as he walked past a hidden wood sprite. The sprite wound the threads of energy into her hair to keep a part of his beauty with her. The man walked on, brushed by another tree, and then another, until he fell to the ground in a faint.  
  
"Are you alright, sir?" a man asked, stopping to check on the stranger that had fallen unconsciously to the ground. This man, too, fed the sprites, and quickly joined the first man, face down in the dirt.  
  
"Somebody call an ambulance!" somebody cried. A crowd of curious on- lookers soon gathered around the fallen men, and before long there was a fairly large group of men that had quite a bit less energy than they had moments before.  
  
The sprites wound up the energy greedily, and Amethyst slipped the energy away from the sprites even as they gathered more. Additional energy she took from the anxious women that were at a loss of how to help their husbands, boyfriends, and sons. Amethyst directed all of this energy into her crystal, which fairly shone with the energy. 'I've never held this much energy before,' Amethyst thought.  
  
"Aku ryo tai san!" a cry rang out, and the red-skirted Sailor Senshi stepped into the midst of the crowd, throwing slips of paper with "evil spirit run away" written on them in perfect kanji. Angry sprites were forced out of their trees and turned upon the intruder with showers of wooden splinters, which flew from their fingertips. Then the blue skirted Sailor Senshi arrived, and a thick mist covered the area.  
  
Amethyst took this as a good signal to leave. She closed her fist tightly around the purple energy storage crystal, ignoring the battle that was taking place between the Sailor Senshi and the wood sprites to feel the pulsing of the energy the crystal contained. She would use this energy to free Jadeite from his crystal prison. Jadeite would know how to keep her safe from the other generals. With this intent, as the magical fog began to dissipate, she teleported out of the park and back to the Dark Kingdom.  
  
*****  
  
Kunzite watched as the most powerful child the Dark Kingdom had ever witnessed teleported out of the park and back into the Dark Kingdom. There was no question in his mind as to her destination. She would be visiting Jadeite, no doubt attempting to free him from Queen Beryl's crystal prison with the energy contained in that purple crystal. He had arrived at the park from the general's meeting in time to be a hidden witness as Amethyst had used human life-force energy and her mythology book to summon the wood sprites. He had seen her channel Dark Energy into the sprites, magnifying their selfish natures to turn them into efficient energy gatherers. His Dark Kingdom eyes had seen the tendrils of energy slip away from the sprites, channeled into Amethyst's purple stone. She had stolen the energy back from the wood sprites with such elegance and skill that he doubted they had ever noticed the loss.  
  
The Dark Kingdom regularly killed Dark Kingdom citizens for disobedience or disloyalty, but the Dark Kingdom would be foolish to waste such a resource as this little girl. He decided that he would oversee Amethyst's dark energy acclimatization himself to ensure that her traitorous thinking and loyalties to Jadeite were replaced with unadulterated loyalty to Queen Beryl with minimum damage to her very useful mind. 


	11. Chapter 10: Crystal Tears end

Crystal Tears Epilogue: Crystal Tears  
By Aisuru  
aisuru_chan@yahoo.com  
  
  
Amethyst stepped out of the swirl of purple fog and ran to the crystalline shell entrapping Jadeite in an eternal isolated consciousness. He stood frozen, his hands held protectively in front of his face, his face a mask of horror. His eyes were open, staring fixedly in front of him, unseeing.  
  
"Don't worry, Jadeite-sama," she cried, throwing herself against his crystal-encased legs, hiding her face against the cool surface. "I have gathered energy, and I will use it to free you. You won't be alone anymore!"  
  
Then Amethyst stood, her hands trembling as she stepped back and grasped the purple stone that had been her unseen companion during her own isolated consciousness. She gripped the crystal in her right hand, the hand with the purple starburst design, and held it up to her forehead, feeling the swirling energy it contained. She then stretched her hands out towards Jadeite, palms towards him, the purple crystal floating in front of her. The energy radiated outward, focused by her purple stone, and bombarded the crystal shell. Under her relentless attack the crystal shuddered, and then microfractures appeared on its surface. "This has to work!" she cried in desperation, putting a bit of her own energy into the purple beam shooting from the crystal.  
  
"It will never work," a voice said behind her. She had never heard Kunzite teleport into the chamber, yet here he was, walking towards her with sure, arrogant steps.  
  
She refused to look at him, trying to keep all of her attention focused on the task of freeing the man that had been her only friend.  
  
Kunzite's laugh was cruel. "It will never work," he repeated, "because Queen Beryl will not allow it. Even if you succeed in freeing him, where could he go that the Dark Kingdom couldn't find him?"  
  
Amethyst hadn't thought beyond freeing Jadeite. Now she knew that Kunzite's words were true. Queen Beryl would make it her personal mission to track them down. Then Jadeite would once again be trapped in eternal isolation.  
  
"Eternal isolation..." Amethyst murmured as a thought came to her. "No!" she cried. "He will not be eternally alone. I will be with him!" With these words she grabbed the levitating purple crystal and rushed towards Jadeite. She remembered all that he meant to her, and tears fell from eyes that had forgotten what it was to cry. The starbursts on her forehead and right hand glowed brilliantly as she channeled the last of her own life-force energy into the crystal encasing Jadeite. The purple glow became a brilliant light, encasing Amethyst and forcing Kunzite to shield his eyes with his arms.  
  
When the light had dimmed, Kunzite lowered his hands from in front of his face. Jadeite was still encased within Queen Beryl's prison, his eyes still staring unseeing into emptiness, his face still reflecting the horror of his last moment in front of Queen Beryl's throne. The sting had been taken out of Queen Beryl's attack, however, because Jadeite was not, in fact, alone. The little child was clinging desperately to his form, a small smile on her face, encased in the crystal beside Jadeite. That smile told Kunzite everything - she had connected to Jadeite's consciousness. Neither of them would ever be alone again.  
  
  
*****  
  
Finished! Review now! And feel free to add me to your favorites (I have no shame, do I?).  
  
If you liked this story, email me and tell me to work on "A Love of... Science?" and "Source of Strength," two other first season Sailor Moon fics I have been working on. These both have romantic curiosity and discoveries between Usagi/Mamoru and/or their super-hero alternate identities, but one of them actually gives the senshi viewpoint of the battles against Amethyst's summoned creatures, but of course without ever seeing Amethyst. Interested? Let me know! 


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